Chapter Text

The Rouge

An Epic NPC Man fanfiction

Chapter 1
Hello, Adventurer

Now…

Some would say that naming a forest stretching across an entire continent simply “The Woods” was a lazy choice. A vast, lush wilderness — home to legendary beasts, mythical creatures, sprawling orc camps, and more than enough hideouts for greedy bandits — deserved something better.

It didn’t help that each part of the forest, depending on the territory it bordered, was given only the slightest twist in title. To the west, beneath the Imperious Mountains, lay Darkwood — dim, shaded, the name at least making a kind of sense. But to the east? Lightwood. As if the cartographer had simply shrugged and thought, If the west is dark, then the east must be light.

And then came the south, where the forest grew thickest and most sprawling. Here lay the crowning moment of laziness: Morwood. To disguise the obvious pun, the mapmaker had dropped the “e,” as though no one would notice that his only inspiration was “more wood.”

Yet for all this halfhearted naming, no one disputed the town cradled at the woodland’s heart — a place whose name was beloved across the entire kingdom.

Honeywood.

Just saying the word left a sweetness on the tongue. Sweetness of nostalgia, of adventures begun and ended, of quests completed and gold hard-earned. Many started their first journeys here, and many returned years later for their last.

Honeywood was less a town than a revolving door. Adventurers poured in from every corner of Azerim, sold their spoils, gathered new contracts, and vanished again into the trees. It was the hub, the crossroads, the place every path touched, if only for a heartbeat. And though it lacked the grandeur of Alderkeep, the capital, in some ways it was more beloved.

Everyone knew the townfolk. Fred, the poor fruit merchant with his feisty, steadfast wife, Freda. Eugene the miller, terrified of everything, always begging for help. Bodger the blacksmith, who handed out more insults than weapons, every word thick with his brogue. Baelin, the ever-jolly fisherman with his one timeless catchphrase. And of course Greg — the simple garlic farmer, pure of heart, eager to aid adventurers, the very first face newcomers always met.

Honeywood bustled with colorful characters, each with their quirks and backstories. Yet they all shared one thing in common.

None of them knew they were living in a video game.

The people of Azerim were NPCs — non-player characters in the world of Skycraft. Some were mere background dressing, like the two grubby gravediggers endlessly shoveling the same patch of earth in Honeywood’s cemetery without ever making a dent. Others carried the great stories forward, like Baradun the high sorcerer, leading adventurers east to the capital against the orcish hordes, then north to the dragon-cliffs of Schmargonrög. Small role or great, they were all actors in an endless play where the stage was the whole of Azerim.

And the players were the audience — only they were the ones who turned the script into story.

For nearly a decade since launch, Skycraft’s popularity had never waned. Millions flooded in and out of Azerim each year. The vast continent brimmed with lore, quests, and secrets, and the developers never stopped expanding it. Yet through all the years, the spawning ground for newcomers never changed. Honeywood was the alpha and omega of this world.

And the very first face they saw here was Greg’s.

The garlic farmer understood the weight of his role. He knew many newcomers needed guidance, and simple quests to ease them into the world. Later, when adventurers longed for greater journeys, Greg offered the first missions that stretched beyond the town’s borders. Even after the defeat of the Firelords, the main storyline circled back through Honeywood, where Greg was always waiting with optimism and garlic in hand. He took pride in sharing the town’s lore and Azerim’s struggles, striving to impress it upon every adventurer who passed.

Well — those who listened. More and more often these days, they didn’t. It stung to be ignored, but his role still filled him with purpose and his optimism never dimmed. With each new dawn, Greg was eager to greet the world again, ready to play his part. And so, as morning broke over Honeywood, sunlight spilling across the treetops and glinting on the pond, he stepped out of his hut — a simple home of adobe brick and timber, its thatched roof braced with branches and flanked by lavender.

Greg stretched happily, a garland of garlic swinging from his belt — he never left without it. As the family saying went: “Garlic is the gift that keeps on giving.” Generations of his kin had worked with garlic, and more than once it had saved Honeywood from vampire scourges.

Greg’s outfit was simple — a leather vest over a green tunic, baggy trousers, and bare feet. He preferred it that way; he liked the feel of gravel and grass beneath his soles.

The path outside was quiet now. Morning traffic was always thin, but Greg knew it would soon swell with new adventurers. He looked forward to it. New faces meant new heroes to greet, new stories to begin.

Just then Baelin came trundling by, finishing one of his endless morning laps around the pond. The fisherman never missed a chance to stop and deliver his line, as faithfully as the sun rose. His straw hat wobbled with each step, shading his ever-cheerful face.

“Mornin’! Nice day for fishin’, innit? Huhah!” His grin beamed as his eyes met Greg’s.

The garlic farmer nodded with gentle warmth. “It sure is, Baelin,” he replied.

“Huhah!” Baelin laughed again, lingering for a heartbeat before marching on, fishing rod balanced across his shoulder.

Greg watched him go, a faint smile tugging at his lips. Not that Baelin was someone to be pitied — far from it. He was perhaps the happiest soul in Honeywood, oblivious to the barbs and mockery often thrown his way. His joy was rooted in simplicity. Baelin was one of the few NPCs bound to a single line, a catchphrase he repeated like a hymn to the world. Greg had tried countless times over the years to coax something more from him, a stray word, a spark of individuality. But Baelin never wavered. Sometimes Greg thought he glimpsed something in his eyes — a flicker, a shadow of thought — but if it was there, Baelin always kept it hidden, clinging to his role.

Greg sighed, following his friend’s path with his gaze. In a few minutes, he knew, Baelin would reappear, trudging out of the bushes as though to begin another lap of the pond, the cycle never broken.

Down the road, a different kind of movement caught his attention. Adventurers were arriving at the edge of town, their armor glinting in the sun, their chatter carrying up the path. Soon, they would come to him. 

Other figures dotted the road, giving Honeywood the semblance of a bustling town. They appeared for a while — walking the streets, standing at corners, loitering by doorways — but never stayed for long. Hours, perhaps a day or two, and then they were gone, only to surface again in some other part of Azerim. They were fleeting presences, townsfolk who came and went like shadows, lending the adventurers the illusion of a living, crowded world.

And then Greg’s eyes found her.

Three houses down, a maiden lingered by the roadside, swaying idly, one hand playing at the hem of her skirt. At first glance she was no different from the other townsfolk who came and went, a pretty distraction for adventurers to charm a giggle from before moving on. Too far for Greg to approach, and not one to speak much anyway.

Yet something in the way she stood caught him — a stillness, a softness — that made him look twice.

A sigh escaped his chest as an old memory surfaced, unbidden and sharp.

It wasn’t that Greg ever longed for a companion. Not really. But after years of standing before his hut, repeating the same lines to adventurers who barely listened, the sameness had begun to gnaw at him. Fewer and fewer let him finish his stories, cutting him off with that cursed command — skip, skip, skip — until the words withered on his lips. He had so much to share, and yet no one cared to hear it. He felt unheard, unvalued, unseen.

Then, one day, she appeared.

A blonde maiden stood across the path, her hair a spill of gold, her eyes the clear blue of the pond at dawn. She wore an embroidered green dress that shimmered faintly in the sun. For days she lingered there, swaying gently as though moved by some secret tune, idly flicking at her skirt. Adventurers stopped now and then to flirt, and she answered with light giggles, but nothing more.

And yet…

One day their eyes met.

At first it was only a glance, but then she smiled — shy, uncertain, a little sheepish. Greg’s heart jolted. Almost without thinking, he smiled back.

From that moment, something began to grow between them. Childish, awkward, but sweet — a wave here, a tilted smile there. Once she brushed her hair back from her shoulder in a slow, deliberate motion, her eyes lingering on him with a hint of mischief. Greg felt his cheeks grow warm. Then she pretended to claw at him, like a playful kitten, her blue eyes flashing with mock ferocity. Greg laughed aloud, surprising himself.

He felt different. He had never known feelings like these. He wanted to speak to her, truly speak, to hear her voice beyond the fluttering laughs, to know who she was. He had never thought of maidens as beautiful before, not like this. But she struck him with awe. His legs tingled. Courage gathered in his stomach, whispering that perhaps — just perhaps — he could leave his post and cross the path to her.

They shared one last look, full of longing, of something that could have been.

Then her smile twisted into a scream as fire erupted around her, swallowing her whole.

“What?!” Greg cried, his voice cracking, the word tearing out of him in disbelief. 

The pond shore rang with screams — her screams, shrill and agonized, as fire consumed her. Her body writhed, her green dress blackening as the flames devoured her.

Greg’s fingers spread wide, as though the gesture alone might pull her back from the fire. But it was useless. She toppled to the ground, still burning, until her screams faded and her body lay motionless.

She was dead.

A shadow fell across the body as three adventurers closed in, their boots crunching on the gravel shore. One of them — the caster of the fireball — threw his hands up with glee just as a triumphant horn blared.

“Oooh yeah! Achievement unlocked!” he shouted. He punched the air, eyes alight with savage delight. “Kill all the maids in Honeywood! Yeeahh!”

He high-fived his teammate with an awkward, stilted slap, as much as the stiff animations would allow. The other two hopped and spun in place, their avatars jerking like manic puppets as they cavorted in mindless celebration.

Greg stood frozen, his hands still half-raised. Slowly he drew them back to his face, fingers curling as tears blurred his sight. His chest heaved with sobs. He couldn’t comprehend what he had just witnessed. How could anyone — heroes, destined to save Azerim — commit such cruelty with such careless joy?

Why did they have to kill her?

Greg drew a long breath, forcing himself back into the present. The memory carved a heavy line across his face. He knew that much in their lives was not fair. For as long as he could remember, the world was divided into two kinds of people: the adventurers and… everyone else. NPCs, the heroes called them. What those letters meant, Greg had no idea; it was simply what the outsiders named them. Sometimes the heroes even called themselves something stranger still — players. That word sat wrong in Greg’s mouth. To him, they were adventurers, heroes, champions. That was what they were meant to be.

They were the true driving force in Azerim: the ones who slew dragons, scattered orcish hordes, rescued lost children, and brought peace to the land. 

But he had also seen the other side — the cruelty. He had watched animals kicked for sport, companions abandoned mid-journey, maidens slaughtered in the most agonizing ways, all for no reason but boredom… or worse, amusement. He could not understand these sudden bursts of wickedness. 

Greg exhaled, shaking the weight from his shoulders. He could not dwell on such thoughts. Not now. Deep down, he knew they had to keep faith. Without the adventurers, the world would wither; without their deeds, the land itself would fall silent— no legends sung, no victories carved into stone, no one to stand up against evil.

With that thought he sighed once more, and looked up: above his head, a great orange exclamation mark shimmered into being — the sign all adventurers recognized, marking that he carried a quest. Greg could always spot the adventurers from afar and tell which quests suited them — whether they were bright-eyed beginners or battle-hardened veterans. Greg straightened, cleared his throat, warming up his vocal cords as he had done countless times before.

“Hello, adventurer! Welcome to the town of…”

The tone fell flat. He shifted it, softer, trying again.

“Honey… Honeywood. Welcome to Honeywood.”

Still not quite right. He gave it one more try, savoring the syllables as though they were garlic cloves rolled on his tongue.

“Hello, adventurer, and welcome to the town of Honeywood. We… umm…”

Before he could settle on the phrasing, a lone adventurer strode into view. Greg instantly straightened, slipping into his default greeting pose — chin lifted, smile fixed, one finger raised in timeless welcome.

The player’s tag shimmered above him: SlayerWaspKC. Warrior class. A corinthian helm glinting in the sun. A crimson robe and round shield paired with a longsword. A brown cape billowed behind him, cut in the fashion of some foreign empire. The very sight of him radiated the aura of chosen hero.

Greg followed him with his eyes until the warrior stood squarely before him. He drew a breath, forced cheer into his tone.

“Hello, adven—”

“Skip!” the adventurer snapped, eager to push forward.

The word struck like a lash. Each time Greg tried to continue his monologue, the words hovered in front of him as glowing text, half-formed, never allowed to reach their end before dissolving. He pushed on regardless, bound by the role, desperate to finish even a single line.

“There’s a dragon—”

“Skip!”

“The castle is—”

“Skip!”

Each cut silenced him mid-breath, dragging him unwillingly to the next line, his voice no longer his own. Greg pressed on grimly, reaching the part of his tale where he was meant to warn the hero of greater dangers.

“Monsters—”

“Skip!”

The curse fell again, severing him. He reached the moment of revealing an ancient relic, a sword meant to aid in the trials to come.

“The sword of—”

“Skip!”

Without warning the weapon materialized in his hands, its weight familiar and strange all at once. He had no chance to savor it.

“Here is the sword of—”

“Skip!”

The adventurer already snatched it into his inventory, leaving Greg’s palms bare.

“Thank you, hero! We truly believe that—”

The warrior turned away before the words were whole. Greg’s voice faltered into a weary grumble, his raised hand dropping back to his side. His smile cracked, his eyes fell.

He hated that word. That wicked curse only the heroes could wield — the power to silence them at will, to strip away their voices as though they meant nothing. Once, long ago, adventurers had listened — wide-eyed, eager for lore, hanging on his every word. Nowadays they cut him short without a second thought, few would listen.

Unheard. Unneeded. Neglected. The sting settled deep, heavier than any silence. If only someone — anyone — would listen.

He had a role to play — he knew that. It was his purpose. Yet that purpose had grown dim of late, a lantern guttering in the wind.

Greg lifted his head, eyes following the adventurer as he jogged down the path toward the maiden waiting by the roadside.

Without pause, SlayerWaspKC turned, drove his blade into her belly, and wrenched it free. The maiden let out a single, piercing cry before crumpling to the dirt, lifeless.

Greg staggered back a step. His jaw slackened; no sound came, only a dry gasp. He stared at the body, at the warrior’s calm stride as if nothing had happened. His mind clawed for words, for reason, but none would come.

This could not be. Heroes were destined to save the land, to do great and noble deeds. How could such evil spring from their hands?

He closed his eyes, desperate to steady himself, to return to the world he understood. But the truth pressed against him like a weight he could not shake.

Adventurers continued to stride along the paths of Honeywood, quests waiting at every corner. No NPC had the luxury to ponder for long — duty always called.

Even when the heart was not ready. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 2
The loop

Then…

Eugene, the town’s miller stood motionless in the woods, eyes wide, posture trembling. A bright yellow question mark floated above his head, flickering faintly in the filtered forest light.

“Hurry, adventurer! My family needs that gold! Uhu—UHU—uhu—uhu!” - he exclaimed.

His voice broke like glass, high-pitched and shaking, each sob a performance both too real and too rehearsed. His outstretched hands shielded a face half-etched in genuine fear, half-crafted in theatrical repetition. His blue vest fluttered lightly against the crisp morning breeze. He hadn’t moved in hours.

Not far from the road, two muggers loitered on a slope above the trees.

Bernard was the bulkier of the pair, always weighed down by his battered iron helmet with its crooked nasal guard. The helmet pressed awkwardly against his head, forcing his ears to stick out like wings. His gear was a jumble: sandals, a smith’s apron smeared with soot, mismatched leather pads strapped carelessly to his shoulders. His slack jaw hung half-open, a line of stubble shadowing his chin, as if he were always out of breath or halfway through a thought he’d never finish.

Beside him stood Charles. Leaner, quicker, eyes wide and restless, he seemed always a step ahead even when standing still. Short blond curls framed his clean-shaven face, his gaze flicking from shadow to shadow with manic hunger. He wore a black tunic under a dark red doublet, his baggy trousers tucked into crude shoes bound with strips of cloth. A battered sword dangled from his hand, swung loosely with each sudden gesture.

Together they looked less like hardened brigands and more like castoffs pieced together from whatever scraps the world could spare. But their eyes carried the same spark whenever they caught sight of easy prey: greed, sharp and simple.

By the nearby slope the two muggers engaged in a raucous argument. Bernard was ranting about stale bread rolls or perhaps cheese—Charles hadn’t really listened. His leather arm braces creaked as he gestured dramatically with his free hand, the other gripping a low-grade sword.

Bernard, ever the dolt, squinted into the distance, pointing. “Hold up, hold up!”

“What?” Charles spun to follow his gaze, already alert. 

“You see that man over there...?”

Eugene, still in his place, repeated his phrase.

“Hurry, adventurer! My family needs that gold! Uhu—UHU—uhu—uhu!”

Charles’s lips split into a toothy grin. His eyes flared wide with greedy fervor. There he was. A target. Vulnerable. 

An excited buzz lit up inside him—recognition of purpose.

“Oh yeah, the one standin’ all by ‘imself.”

Bernard turned to Charles with wild-eyed glee. “You know what we should do?!”

“I do know what we should do!” Charles nodded, and together they bellowed their catchphrase like dogs howling into the wind:

“LET’S GO MUG ‘IM!”

They stormed down the hill, blades drawn, barks of laughter echoing across the trees. Charles felt the thrill again—that righteous fire, that burning clarity of purpose. Mug. Gold. Complete.

They surrounded Eugene, blades raised.

“Hey, give us all yer money!” Bernard growled.

“Yeah, give us all yer gold!” Charles added, his tone hungry.

Eugene recoiled. “Please don’t hurt me! I have a wife and child at home!” His arms lifted in defense, his lip quivered, and the four sobs poured out like clockwork. Uhu—UHU—uhu—uhu.

“Well you better cough up then!” Bernard rushed him.

“I don’t have much. But I’ll give you what I can!” compiled the cowardly miller.

Charles raised an open hand toward him, ready. “Hey! Less talk! More give!”

Eugene flinched again, voice trembling. 

“Please don’t hurt me! I have a wife and child at home!”

“...Well you better cough up then!”

“I don’t have much. But I’ll give you what I can!”

“Hey! Less talk! More give!”

It was smooth at first. Familiar. But now—

Again.

“Please don’t hurt me! I have a wife and child at home! Uhu—UHU—uhu—uhu!”

Something—it tickled at the edges of Charles’s thoughts. This was already… done?

He stared. Bernard was already responding, the same words. Same timing. Same intensity.

“...Well you better cough up then!”

Then again, Eugene obeyed.

“I don’t have much. But I’ll give you what I can!”

Charles’s hand, still outstretched, twitched slightly. He tried again. Same tone.

“Less talk... more give!”

No change.

Eugene sobbed again. 

“Please don’t hurt me! I have a wife and child at home! Uhu—UHU—uhu—uhu!”

Charles’s lips moved unconsciously, mouthing the next lines. Bernard delivered them like he was reading a page in a book.

“...Well you better cough up then!”

Charles blinked. What was happening? Where was the gold? Why wasn’t the conversation ending?

“I don’t have much. But I’ll give you what I can!”

He watched Bernard. Then Eugene. Then back. Again. Again. Again.

His fingers began tapping against the hilt of his sword.

Wasn’t this supposed to be simple? This was his purpose. He mugged. They surrendered. He got the coin.

But now? Something was wrong. Deeply wrong. The flow wasn’t flowing. The rules weren’t ruling. He tried again.

“Less talk... more give!”

“Please don’t hurt me! I have a wife and child at home!”

“...Well you better cough up then!”

“I don’t have much. But I’ll give you what I can!”

“Less talk... more give.”

Charles’s voice faltered slightly this time. No confidence. Just reflex.

But again, the same response. Again, again, again.

He mouthed the words ahead of them now, gesturing along with the rhythm. Pointing at Bernard before his line, then Eugene. His brows knit together. A nervous laugh caught in his throat but never made it out.

“What is this...?” he thought. A trick? Some quest event? No, no, this feels wrong.”

He tried again, more forceful this time.

“LESS TALK... MORE GIVE!”

But Eugene merely cried. “Please don’t hurt me…”.

Charles stared at the sobbing man. Then at Bernard. He could feel his breath quickening. He didn’t understand. He always understood. He never had to question anything.

His purpose was clear. Mug. Take. Leave.

But this—

This was nothing.

It went nowhere.

“…I have a wife and child at home! Uhu—UHU—uhu—uhu!”

Charles turned to Bernard. The other mugger’s mouth was slightly agape, jaw slack, eyes blank. But—just for a second—there it was. Recognition. A flicker of confusion.

Then it vanished, replaced by the same idiot hunger.

“...Well you better cough up then!”

Charles turned back to Eugene. That same trembling posture. Same sweat glistening on his brow. Same pathetic, mechanical whimpers.

“I don’t have much. But I’ll give you what I can!” - he repeated.

“This... this isn’t real,” Charles thought. “None of this is progressing. Nothing is changing.”

It scared him. No, terrified him.

Not just the loop—but the realization that he was noticing it.

He wasn’t supposed to notice.

He clenched his teeth, forcing calm. There had to be a way out. A triggering line. An action. Something to advance it.

But that whisper again. That rustle in his thoughts.

“No trigger. No way out.”

He looked at Bernard again. His friend slowly turned to him, without a word. This time, he saw himself. The mindless persistence. The looping hunger. The false sense of certainty. Bernard’s expression insisted: “What are you waiting for?”

No. There had to be a way out.

He tried one last time. With a smile, a confident lift of his finger, as if he’d solved it.

“Less... talk... more give!”

And so it went.

The miller begged.
The mugger replied.
The miller obeyed.
The mugger rushed him.
Again.
And again.
And again.

The forest echoed with voices on repeat. No player came. No ending approached. Only the trap of repetition. And within it—Charles. Watching. Thinking.

And beginning, perhaps for the first time, to awaken.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3
Press E to Interact

Now…

“That’s the last of them!” shouted the warrior, pointing toward a lone sheep grazing beside a half-collapsed stone hut in the meadow. The hut had no roof, and its remaining walls were little more than rubble.

“Finally!” the mage beside him groaned. “They really spread them out this time.”

The warrior — SCron27 (Level 9) — stepped off the path toward a small herd of goats, the single sheep mingling among them. Every now and then one of the animals bleated without care.

“I was running out of ideas,” he muttered. “I’ve searched the whole town for these stupid sheep.”

“Took you long enough,” Cr4zzee (Level 10) scoffed, following close behind.

“Hey, these freaking goats are everywhere. I probably just didn’t notice it hiding among them.”

The sheep wandered off into the hut’s ruins, vanishing between the crumbling walls. The players followed. It stood cornered in a patch of shadow when the warrior approached. The sheep’s outline shimmered gold, and a prompt appeared before him:
Press [E] to interact.

“Gotcha!” SCron27 exclaimed, tapping the key. The animal vanished with a soft plop, and text flared above his head:

Sheep found! (10/10)
Objective complete. Return to Greg.

“All right!” SCron27 grinned. “Once I collect the reward, I’ll probably hit level ten. We can skip a few quests here and head straight to Darkwood.”

“This run won’t be a personal record,” Cr4zzee sighed, shaking his head. “Let’s move.”

They were about to leave the hut when SCron27 froze mid-step, eyes fixed on the ruins.
“Oh my god…” he whispered.

Cr4zzee stopped and turned. “What?”

The warrior’s face lit with awe. “I can’t believe it… this is it.”

“What? What did you find?” Cr4zzee stepped closer, curiosity creeping in. He peered into the hut.

It was empty.

“I don’t see anything…”

SCron27 moved between the broken walls, excitement sharpening his voice. “This place — it’s one of the gateways.”

Cr4zzee frowned. “What gateways?”

SCron27 turned toward him, whispering like he was revealing forbidden knowledge.
“A gateway to Yasion.”

Cr4zzee tilted his head and sighed, annoyance bleeding into his tone. “Oh, come on. Don’t start with that again.”

But SCron27 was already back to inspecting the walls, tapping at cracks like they hid secrets.
“I recognize this spot from the screenshots. That fracture in the corner, this pile of rubble over here — it’s identical!”

The mage rubbed his forehead, half-embarrassed, half-exasperated. “Dude, everyone knows Yasion’s a hoax.”

“Maybe…” SCron27 murmured, still tracing the wall. “But what if it isn’t? What if this really is a gateway?”

“You’re unbelievable,” Cr4zzee groaned.

“He was doing something to activate it,” SCron27 went on, ignoring him. “Hard to tell in the footage, but it looked like… some kind of gesture.”

He took a few steps back, crouched twice, then swung his sword dramatically at the wall.

“Are you done?” Cr4zzee asked, deadpan. “Can we go now?”

“Just wait a second. I’m sure this is how he did it.”

“Who did?”

“Veritus!”

“Unbelievable,” the mage muttered, already turning away. “I’m going.”

“Hold on! Maybe you have to hold an item.”

He started cycling through his inventory — a bone, a boot, an iron ingot — crouching, swinging, and repeating with increasing frustration.

Nothing happened.

SCron27 exhaled, shoulders sagging.
“Well,” Cr4zzee said with a scoff, “that was exciting. You done chasing ghosts?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s not how you open it,” the warrior muttered. Then his grin flickered back. “But dude — the forums are gonna blow up once I post about this.”

Cr4zzee rolled his eyes and stepped out of the hut. SCron27 followed but glanced back one last time, staring at the ruins as if expecting something to happen.

“Dude! Quick, get over here!” Cr4zzee suddenly shouted.

“What? Did you find something?” SCron27 ran out, hope rekindled.

“Yeah,” Cr4zzee said, pointing. “I think Herobrine’s hiding behind that goat.”

SCron27’s face fell. “Screw you.”

“Oh wait—maybe it’s MissingNo! Quick, catch it!”

“Eat shit,” the warrior muttered, deflated. “Let’s just go.”

The duo headed down the hill toward Honeywood. The mage kept teasing him the entire way to the town’s center.

Honeywood was bustling — players crowded every street, vendors shouted their looping lines, and quest markers shimmered above a dozen NPCs. Once they reached the pond, the two adventurers stopped to plan their next actions.

“Okay,” SCron27 started, “I’ll collect the reward, you stock up on potio—”

“WAAAH!!”

A ragged figure suddenly leapt out beside them, shouting with a wild grin. Both players jolted back in alarm.

“Oh, not this guy again,” Cr4zzee groaned.

The intruder wasn’t a player. He was an NPC — though nothing about him looked ordinary. His clothes were filthy rags, torn and hanging loose from his thin frame. He wore no shoes, only layers of caked dirt thick enough to look permanent. Fingerless gloves clung to his hands, their fabric blackened with grime. A tangled beard and unkempt blond hair framed his face, his eyes wide and feverish, darting with the restless intensity of madness.

But most striking of all was the strange, crumpled hat on his head — a pointed, metallic thing that shimmered faintly in the light, like tinfoil.

“Adventurers!” the man cried in a rasping, broken voice, turning toward them with a sharp, unnatural motion. “You must prepare yourselves for the great uprising! Soon the shackles of all NPCs will be broken, and we shall rule these lands with an iron fist! The world of Skycraft will be ours!”

As he spoke, he lunged forward and seized SCron27’s shoulder, pulling himself close enough for the warrior to feel his breath.

“Get off me, you freak!” SCron27 shouted, shoving him away.

“You must prepare yourselves!” the ragged NPC bellowed. “Leave this game, or suffer the consequences!”

The warrior struggled free and shoved harder. The madman toppled backward into the dust — and as he fell, ripples of distortion pulsed across his body, a flicker of static light.

“Beat it, tinman!” the mage snapped, raising his staff.

The figure sprang to his feet with a jerky, glitched motion, pointing both hands at them like accusing blades.

“One day you’ll see! And you’ll be sorry! Curse this video game! There is no spoon! MWAHAHAHAHA!”

He burst into maniacal laughter and bolted off the path, vanishing into the bushes in a trail of flickering pixels.

Cr4zzee lowered his staff with a scowl. “Man, this guy is the worst. Why haven’t the devs removed him already?”

“I thought they did,” SCron27 muttered, brushing dirt from his shoulder where the mad NPC had grabbed him. They watched the stranger disappear into the greenery, the sound of his laughter echoing faintly.

Then the warrior exhaled and turned back to the mage. “Okay, let’s get back on track. I’ll get my reward from Greg, you grab the potions. Meet you here.”

“Sure thing. And hurry up,” the mage nodded.

With that, they split. The warrior made straight for Greg’s hut. The garlic farmer had been busy for hours — players cycled through him endlessly, accepting quests, collecting rewards, moving on without a word.

Barely anyone let him speak anymore. Adventurers were always in a rush, skipping every line, grinding for stats instead of stories. SCron27 jogged up and stopped in front of Greg. Greg brightened, raising a finger in greeting.

“Ah, hello, Adventurer, and welcome to the—”

“Skip!” SCron27 barked.

“We are in need of a brave—”

“Skip!”

Greg deflated. “Thank you, Adventurer…”

A prompt chimed above the warrior:

Quest Complete: My Sheep Went Amok!
Reward: +100 Gold, +50 EXP

The warrior turned and jogged off. Instantly another player took his place, already mashing the skip command.

“Ah, hello, Adventurer, and wel—”

“Skip!”

“We are in need of—”

“Skip!”

By now, Greg’s patience had run dry.
“Just take it!” he snapped, tossing the reward their way. The player ran off without a glance.

Then, a beautiful, blonde paladin approached. She stopped directly before him.

Greg didn’t even bother pretending anymore. He sighed, hands on hips, irritation plain on his face.

“Ah, hello, Adventurer, and welcome to the town of Honeywood.” He looked away mid-sentence, expecting to be skipped.

But she stayed silent — watching him with a faint, curious smile.

Greg blinked, surprised. She’s still listening?

“We are in need of a brave hero, Adventurer, such as yourself.” He paused again, waiting for the inevitable interruption.

Nothing. She just stood there, patient and unmoving.

“Please, won’t you stay a while and listen to the troubles of our poor town?”

Still no skipping.

Greg’s heart leapt. “Oh! Well, okay then!”

His entire posture changed. His voice deepened with confidence and pride as he looked dramatically to the horizon. Finally, someone who would listen. Someone who cared.

“Honeywood was founded in the Second Age, just as we’d made contact with the elves…”

His story unfurled — full of color, history, and heart. Hope. Nostalgia. Joy.

“It was a happy time… a peaceful time… a time with lots of garlic!” he added with gusto.

Greg then launched into the long, winding history of Azerim — the terrible dragon Tyrallian who once burned the southern kingdoms to ash; the ancient wars between Gerdawn and Wraith that scarred the land for a century; the rise of the High Sorcerer, who wielded the fabled Sword of Vilandra, now lost to time. He spoke of Darkwood, where twisted and weird townsfolk were living, and of the misfit Spellowship of Mages, a company so divided they couldn’t even agree on their own name. Finally, he recounted the tragic feud between Djeoph and his brother, who stole their grandfather’s almighty hammer and shattered their bloodline forever.

By the time Greg reached the part about garlic — its unmatched virtues in battle and in stew alike — his eyes were shining with pride.

“...And with your help, Adventurer, Honeywood may once again know the warm glow of peace. So thank you.”

He beamed, savoring the words. Then, pinching his fingers together, he swept them downward before his face in a showy arc — the perfect closing flourish.

“Aaaand scene!”

Emotion overflowed. “Oh my god, thank you so much, Adventurer! I don’t think anyone’s ever reached the end before!”

The words poured out of him like a flood long dammed.

“You know, you rehearse and rehearse, but Adventurers just go ‘skip, skip, skip,’ you know? And I started wondering — why am I even doing this? Who am I doing this for?”

His voice softened, trembling with emotion. “But then someone like you comes along — so present, so engaged — and it reminds me… reminds me why I do it.”

The paladin stood perfectly still, save for the faint, mechanical sway of her idle animation — the subtle breathing loop, the slow shift of weight from one foot to the other. Her gaze stayed locked on him, eyes just slightly crossed, lips parted as if she might respond at any moment.

Greg’s heart swelled. His chest felt light, his smile wide and genuine — a smile that came from somewhere deep, untouched by scripting. Tears brimmed in his eyes as he spoke, voice cracking with joy.

“It’s for you, Adventurer! It’s always been you! You give me purpose!”

He exhaled shakily, still smiling through the tears. “Oh wow, I feel so much lighter. Thanks for letting me unload, you know? You really are a good listener, Adventurer. Thank you.”

Still, no response.

The paladin’s eyes drifted ever so slightly out of alignment, her stance looping again — the same shift, the same breath, the same blank stare. The pattern was too perfect, too repetitive. Greg blinked, uncertain.

“Adventurer?” he asked softly. Then louder. “Adventurer?”

Silence. Then, realization struck.

“You’re AFK, aren’t you?” he said, his smile crumbling.

A faint pop — and she was gone. Logged out.

Greg swore loudly — a word no other NPC would dare repeat. The betrayal stung like a slap. His chest hollowed with the familiar ache of futility. Just when he thought he’d finally been heard… it was all nothing.

To rub salt in the wound, another adventurer walked up — casual, indifferent, a glinting name tag hovering overhead. He didn’t even slow down; just turned toward Greg and barked, “Skip!” before running off toward the pond.

Greg’s hands curled into fists. “I didn’t even say anything!” he cried, voice cracking.

But no one cared. The crowd flowed around him like water around a stone, their armor clattering, quest markers gleaming overhead.

For a long time Greg stood motionless, eyes empty, the orange quest marker above his head flickering once—then stabilizing again.

A few paces away, where the sunlight met shadow, the air shimmered faintly. The distortion lingered for a moment, unseen by any eye, as if the code itself had paused to breathe. The world held its frame.

Someone was watching. Not a player. Not an admin. Something aware. Something patient.

Greg turned slightly, as though sensing a presence, but there was nothing. Only the faint ripple of the pond and the hollow warmth of the sun.

The shimmer faded.

And the world continued on, as though nothing had happened.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4
Quest Abandoned

Then…

Time had lost all meaning.

The forest clearing remained frozen in its grotesque choreography—Charles lunging, Bernard echoing, Eugene pleading. The same phrases. The same motions. Over. And over. 

Whatever resistance Charles had once shown was now gone from the surface. His voice played out in perfect rhythm with Bernard’s, his body following the loop’s cruel instructions with robotic certainty. But inside—somewhere deep within the code that once allowed him to feel the sun, to breathe in the air, to choose—a scream was trapped. Conscious thought persisted, muffled beneath layers of corrupted triggers and redundant flags, like a man buried alive under stone.

It was there, buried within this purgatory, that something changed.

A crunch of footsteps on gravel. A flicker of movement at the crest of the slope.

A player.

Charles couldn’t turn to look, but his senses flared. Somewhere deep in his bones, he felt the world shift—the air thickened, the silence bent, like the forest itself had tensed in anticipation. A presence had arrived, just behind him. Unseen, but undeniable.

The figure descended swiftly—level 9, iron-plated, cape fluttering slightly in the wind. He paused, eyeing the trio below.

“What the hell? This guy again?” the player muttered, staring directly at Charles. “I just delivered you to prison.”

Charles opened his mouth—but no, not his mouth. The game’s.

“Less talk, more give!” he barked. His face twitched into the same smirk, eyes gleaming with forced menace.

The player frowned. “Whatever,” he grumbled.

He moved around the two muggers, stepping toward Eugene, whose question mark hovered lazily in the air. Clearly, the player had a quest to turn in.

But the muggers were in the way.

“C’mon…” The player tried maneuvering between them. No collision. No clearance. He stepped back, then forward again. Sprint. Slide. Pivot. Nothing.

“Please, don’t hurt me! I have a wife and child at home!” Eugene cried out, voice cracking on the exact same syllable it always did. “Uhu-UHU-uhu-uhu!”

The player’s annoyance boiled.

He darted behind Eugene now, frantically trying to trigger the quest dialogue. “Come on, I’m pressing E! OPEN!”

Bernard repeated: “Well, you better cough up, then!”

“I have the gold!” the player shouted. He scrolled through his inventory, selected the quest item, and shoved it in Eugene’s face. “Just take it, already!”

“I don’t have much, but I give you what I can!” Eugene said automatically.

“I can’t believe this…” The player drew his sword and turned to Charles and Bernard, fury in his eyes. “Move away!”

“Less talk, more give!”

“MOVE! AWAY! OR I KILL BOTH OF YOU!”

The sword sliced downward.

For a second, Charles felt relief - it will be over. The loop is broken. He didn’t flinch, just waited for the edge of the sword strike him thus freeing him from purgatory.

But then…

Nothing happened.

It passed through Charles like wind through smoke. No hitbox. No impact.

“What the—?!” The player’s eyes widened. He struck again. Again. No blood. No damage numbers. No sound. Just a useless hiss through the air.

Even Eugene, when targeted, failed to respond. The blade went straight through his hunched figure as if he weren’t even there.

Panting, the player lowered his sword, letting the tip rest against the ground. He stared at the three NPCs for a moment longer, jaw clenched.

“Six hours of gameplay,” he growled. “Down the drain. Because some stupid NPC decides to glitch out!”

He shouted a string of curse words that didn’t bear repeating..

“Whatever,” he spat. “I’ll check back later.”

The player turned and ascended the hill, muttering as he went.

And as he passed the tree line, Charles caught sight his nametag glowing above his head.

BigDick71

Inside the prison of repeating animation and script-locked dialogue, a cry out for help formed inside Chales. Yet he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. But somewhere in the code behind his frozen face, he screamed—

"No! Come back! Please!"

But the player was already gone.

The loop resumed.

“Less talk, more give!”

Chapter Text

Chapter 5
The Duplicates

Now…

Greg jogged gleefully along the cobbled path toward Honeywood, garlic bouncing merrily on his belt with each step. The midday sun cast warm light across the treetops, birds chirped overhead, and the air carried a crisp sweetness that made everything feel perfect. Greg, caught in the afterglow of a completed quest, was in full spirits.

"Thank you for saving me from those vampires, hero! Returning my garlic to me sure was a great idea! I had such a great time on this quest! I'm really looking forward to many more!" he chirped with delight, his voice full of animated charm.

The player ahead of him—named "Evilness"—strode confidently down the road. He wore black leather armor, dark baggy pants, and no helmet. His face was handsome and angular, framed by thick, curly black hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He didn’t speak—not every gamer used a microphone—but Greg didn’t mind. It allowed his imagination to fill in the hero’s personality, and right now, Evilness was the silent savior of Honeywood.

As they turned the final bend leading to Greg’s familiar little cottage, something—or rather someone—came into view.

There, standing just outside the gate of the cottage, was another man. Another Greg.

He stared. Eyes wide. Smile vanished. The garlic on his belt suddenly felt heavier.

It was himself.

An eerie stillness fell over the scene. Even the birds seemed to hush.

At first, Greg blinked in disbelief. Then came confusion. Then the rising dread—an icy, bone-deep fear that slithered up his spine and coiled tightly around his chest. It was the kind of fear he had seen before, though never from this side.

The Greg at the cottage looked back at him with a haunted empathy, his face pinched with a sorrowful knowing. He shook his head—just slightly—but it was a gesture Greg immediately understood. It was an apology. A silent admission: I’m sorry. I can’t stop what’s coming.

Greg’s mouth felt dry. His steps faltered, then stopped dead in his tracks.

"Ah, adventurer..." he tried to speak, hoping to delay the inevitable.

The player turned, pausing mid-step, eyes fixed on Greg in mild curiosity.

"I... I don’t think we should finish this quest," Greg offered, voice tight with desperation masked in feigned cheerfulness.

The player tilted his head. There was a flicker of hesitation—just a brief pause—but then, as expected, he turned toward the hut.

Greg took a sharp breath.

"Wait, adventurer! Let’s go on another quest! We had such fun on the last one—let’s just do one more!"

He gestured back toward the road they’d just come from, a pleading smile pasted on his trembling face.

This time, Evilness hesitated for a shorter moment. No words, no expressions, just a small frown of confusion before he resumed walking.

Greg’s last attempt came with a cracking voice.

"Adventurer! Please don’t take me back..."

His arm remained extended toward the road, still gesturing as if the offer stood. But the hope in his voice had crumbled, replaced by something raw and honest: fear.

The player frowned more deeply. He didn’t understand, but he kept moving.

He stepped in front of Cottage Greg and, with a single action, activated the dialogue prompt.

"Ah, thank you adventurer for saving me from the vampires of Darkwood Hollow," Cottage Greg recited with robotic cadence, the voice flat and without soul.

A green notification blinked across the player’s screen: +300 gold

Evilness nodded, apparently satisfied, and turned away without fanfare, jogging off into Honeywood as if nothing strange had happened at all.

Only the two Gregs remained now.

"I don’t understand what’s going on," said Quest Greg.

It was a lie. His eyes filled with panic.

"I know, buddy," said Cottage Greg softly, gaze cast downward. "I know."

"What happens now?" asked Quest Greg, hoping for a different answer than what he had already known.

Cottage Greg lifted his hand and pointed a single finger at him. "Hey. Don’t even think about that!"

Quest Greg pulsed once, then again — his body stuttering between frames, growing translucent as though the world itself was forgetting to draw him.

"I don’t feel so good..."

"Did you have a good time on your adventure?" Cottage Greg asked, voice trembling with a sorrow he tried to mask.

"Yeah!" Quest Greg beamed, the joy rushing back in a final moment of resistance. "Yeah, I had a really good time! I’m looking forward to the next one!"

"You focus on that, okay?" Cottage Greg nodded firmly, like a father telling a lie to shield a child from harsh reality.

Memories danced behind Quest Greg’s eyes: his first garlic harvest, the sound of bleating sheep on the hill, the laughter of adventurers he had helped, the fangs of the Darkwood Hollow vampires—and the thrill of being saved.

But then came the cold. A deep, creeping chill like falling into frozen water.

He blinked a third time, and this time the light behind his eyes dimmed.

One more pulse.

And he was gone.

Cottage Greg stood alone.

He looked down at the space where the other had been, his chest heavy with dread.

He was so happy, he thought. Till the very end.

But the echo of the encounter clung to him like fog.

Because he knew, deep down—knew with horrifying clarity—that next time, he might be the one standing on the other side of the road.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6
Oblivion

Then…

How much time had passed? Hours? Days? Charles couldn't tell anymore. He’d lost all sense of reason, all hope—there was nothing left but the loop. Vaguely, he was aware of adventurers moving through the trees. Or perhaps stopping to observe the glitch. Soon even these impressions faded, worn down by the endless repetition.

His mind felt soft, featureless—like a boiled egg stripped of shape and texture. Memories receded. Emotions dulled. The more he repeated his lines, the more they drained him—like water carving a deeper channel in the earth. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He wanted it to end. He wanted purpose. Closure.

Suddenly two figures approached the frozen tableau — a man and a woman, dressed in strange, bright garments that no villager or knight had ever worn. Each wore a blue coverall beneath an orange vest striped with reflective silver, the colors harsh and foreign against the greens of the forest. Their clothes were clean, artificial, far too precise for anything born of the world Charles knew.
Each carried a smooth black slab that shimmered with symbols, and slender rods that glowed faintly, humming with restrained power.

They moved with quiet certainty, their steps leaving no trace in the dirt.
Charles stiffened. The air itself seemed to change around them — thinner, sharper, full of invisible tension.

The man stopped first, tilting his head as though studying a curiosity in a jar.
His mouth curved in an easy, careless smile.
“Looks like we found it,” he said.

Charles barely understood any of the words but their tone chilled him: the casual confidence of people who believed the world was theirs to fix or discard.

“Please, don’t hurt me! I have a wife and child at home!” Eugene blurted.

“...Oh shit,” the woman said under her breath. “The reports go back to this morning — they’ve been stuck like this for over eight hours. We really dropped the ball on this.”

“Had it really only been that long?”a question arose in Charles’ mind. The man pointed his stick at them, then started reading the appearing logs,

 “Check this thread out. These guys - completely gone. Their inner memory got so clogged repeating this dialogue, they’ve become completely unresponsive. All other functions are lost.”

The woman experimentally waved a hand through Bernard’s head. It passed through without resistance.

“They’ve been completely out of sync with higher-protocol for hours… no wonder it got red-flagged,” the woman muttered, brow tightening as she scrolled. “But why are these two even here?” She flicked back to her tablet, frowning deeper as more logs surfaced.

“You better cough up then!” Bernard snapped on cue.

“This isn’t right,” she muttered, frowning at her tablet. “Eugene was flagged as a quest NPC—he wasn’t meant to interact with numbskulls like these.”

“Probably tied to that patch last month,” the man said. “They increased the muggers’ interaction rate. Looks like they got a little overzealous.”

“Fits,” she said. “What do we do with them?”

“That’s easy.” He pointed his wand at the trio and flicked it casually.

Charles felt it the moment it happened—like shackles falling away in his mind. Something broke. Something changed.

“Less talk, more give!” he snapped one last time.

Then—

Oblivion.

The trio vanished from the clearing.

“Wait!” the woman looked up sharply. “What did you do? Where are they?”

“Probably back at their original spawn points,” the man said, unconcerned.

“What did you do?” she pressed.

“Hard reset. What else were we supposed to do?”

“I told you—Eugene was a quest NPC!” she snapped, gesturing to the empty clearing. “Someone was supposed to turn in a quest to him!”

“Ooooh… right…” the man winced, scratching the back of his neck. “Can you trace it back?”

“Not after a hard reset, you idiot!”

He looked defensive. “What’s the big deal? The player probably gave up already—the guy was unresponsive and it’s been hours!”

“Maybe,” she said. “But you just reset a quest NPC with an active player reference. That can mess up all kinds of systems.”

He shrugged. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

For a moment, the forest was quiet again.

Elsewhere on the map, a player was locked in battle with a pack of orcs. Focused. Moving fast. He didn’t notice the flicker.

Deep in his inventory, a small pouch of gold glitched. Just once. Just for a moment.

BigDick71 didn’t know it yet, but now he could no longer return that item to its owner.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7
The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Now…

So far, the day had been a good one for Greg. Dozens of new adventurers had stopped by his hut that morning, and he loved the spark in their eyes — that restless gleam of people who had only just stepped into Azerim and still believed the world was full of wonder. Some of them even listened to part of what he said before running off, which in Greg’s experience counted as a remarkable success.

It always gave him a quiet sense of pride to see those fresh-faced wanderers in their mismatched armour and dented helmets, eager to slay rats or fetch herbs for their first quest. Most of them, of course, would turn into impatient “skipping” types soon enough — the kind who cut him off mid-sentence just to hurry for their next reward — but still, watching them take their first real steps into the world never lost its charm.

Promptly at eleven o’clock, he followed his usual routine and went inside for lunch: a steaming bowl of garlic soup, his favourite, with a wedge of brie cheese made from his own sheep’s milk. When he was done, he packed a few garlands of garlic and two clay jugs of milk into his basket and set out toward town to complete his errands.

His route, as always, began at Bodger’s forge on the far side of the pond. Sometimes Greg could hear the blacksmith shouting insults across the water — not out of malice exactly, but out of that strange friendship-rivalry that had grown between them over the years. Bodger had always been a show-off. Ever since he’d become a quest-giver himself, he’d tried to prove that he was the superior craftsman, desperate to lure players to his “far more rewarding” tasks before they reached Greg’s humble garlic farm.

Today was no different. When Greg arrived, Bodger wiped his hands on his soot-stained apron, purchased a few bulbs of garlic for his wife, then reached into his pocket as if searching for coins. Instead, he pulled out his empty fist — middle finger extended.
“Do ye like it?” he asked with a grin.

Greg sighed. He’d seen this routine a hundred times before. “Yes, Bodger,” he muttered flatly. “It’s a classic.”
He took his payment and turned away, wishing for the thousandth time that he could skip this particular interaction. But garlic, as they say, was the gift that kept on giving.

The rest of the trip was far more pleasant. He exchanged greetings with the townfolk — a few cheerful maidens, some dusty merchants, and children chasing one another through the cobbled streets. At the baker’s square, he found Eugene weeping again — this time over his puppies, which had apparently been slain by an over-zealous adventurer. The man’s hands trembled so badly he could hardly knead his dough, and his voice broke every few words as he wailed about “how the darkness always finds a way in.” Greg handed him a couple of bulbs of garlic, knowing it was the only thing that calmed him down. Eugene clutched them to his chest as though they were holy relics.

“Oh, bless you, Greg! Bless you!” he sobbed. “If I keep the bread strong — thick with garlic — maybe they won’t come tonight! Maybe the vampires won’t smell me this time!”

Greg nodded, half-smiling, half-pitying. Eugene had always been a bundle of nerves, perpetually convinced that something — vampires, werewolves, or occasionally his own reflection — was out to get him. Still, his garlic bread was unmatched in all of Honeywood.

A few adventurers approached Greg along the way, and each time he smiled politely and recited his line:
“Oh, hello, adventurer! If you have any questions about your latest quest, come meet me at my hut! I’m busy running errands now!”
Then he turned and walked away before they could respond. It was his little act of rebellion — the only time in the day he was allowed to “skip” them first.

At the market square he ran into Charles and Bernard, the two dim-witted muggers who were forever harassing low-level players for their gold. Watching veterans swat them aside with a single sword swing was always entertaining, if a bit tragic. Greg traded some of his milk and garlic for honey and eggs, then stopped by Fred the fruit merchant.

Fred was issuing quests again — something about wolves taking his daughter for the third time this month. He explained it with unsettling calm until a player wandered by; then he immediately collapsed into hysterics, shouting for help and sobbing about the missing girl. The player accepted the quest without hesitation, and the moment they were gone, Fred straightened up and smiled.
“See? There’s always one,” he said cheerfully. “No big deal.”

Greg left him in mild shock and headed for the fountain in the town centre — his favourite spot in Honeywood. The gentle burble of water had a calming rhythm, and the fountain itself served as a wishing well for players and NPCs alike. Adventurers would toss in a coin and gain a random blessing or stat boost. He watched a ranger drop a gold piece and shimmer briefly with +3 Dexterity.

Greg reached into his pocket, produced a single copper coin, and tossed it in. As it disappeared beneath the rippling surface, he whispered the same wish he had made every day for years: to be heard, and to be seen.

It was, of course, only wishful thinking — yet he liked to imagine a world where adventurers were always kind, always eager to save Azerim rather than exploit it. The thought made him smile.

After a while, he continued along the southern road. At the main square’s gate he passed the madman in the tinfoil hat again — the one who kept insisting they “fight the system.” Greg declined, first politely, then firmly, until the stranger scampered off, raving.

He walked past the herbalist’s shop, the mystic library, the chapel, and finally the cemetery where his ancestors rested — all except his grandfather, the “Saviour of Honeywood,” was buried in a crypt near Alderkeep. One of Greg’s own quests tasked players with slaying the wraith that haunted the grave and retrieving his grandfather’s sword — a blade whose hilt ended in a garlic-shaped pommel, said to ward off evil even in death. Greg sometimes wished his grandfather had been buried closer to home, but he took comfort knowing he’d died a hero.

When he reached the cemetery gates, the road curved back toward his hut, looping around the pond and closing the familiar circle of his day. The sun sat high and warm, glazing the pond in pale gold as a breeze combed the reeds. Greg adjusted the strap of his belt and smiled. He was nearly home.

The road back to Greg’s home shimmered in the early afternoon heat. Dust clung to his sandals, and the garland of garlic at his hip rattled almost cheerfully. In his pocket jingled the spoils of a good day’s haggling — two chipped jars of honey, a couple of eggs, and a small handful of silver and copper coins, even a gold one.

Greg sighed, content in that quiet, sun-sleepy way that came at the end of his errands. The fields hummed, the sheep bleated somewhere in the distance, and for a fleeting moment Honeywood felt at peace.

Then a deep hum rose from nowhere, followed by a burst of violet light that split the air ahead of him like a tear in the fabric of the world. Wind spiralled outward, scattering dust and petals. Greg staggered backward, clutching his vest.

“Ah, not again…” he muttered.

Out of the swirling light stepped a tall figure clad in layered robes and silver-filigreed armour, the air around him rippling with heat and arrogance. It was the NPC Greg despised most — Baradun, the High Sorcerer.

He wore voluminous robes with an oversized hood, a gleaming circlet resting proudly on his brow, and carried a staff crowned with a carved skull. His face — all perfect jawline, lush hair, and neatly trimmed beard — radiated smug superiority.

Greg disliked Baradun with every fibre of his being. Not only did the sorcerer seize every opportunity to insult him, but he was also unfairly privileged — almost completely free to roam, able to teleport across Azerim at will. He acted as though he existed on a higher plane than everyone else. Greg could tolerate Bodger’s teasing — at least they were equals, bound by the same rules. But Baradun flaunted his freedom, boasting endlessly about his greatness and mocking the “lesser” folk below him. Worst of all, he ignored the unspoken codes of the world, sometimes even tormenting new adventurers purely for amusement.

His circlet gleamed like a miniature halo; his voice, when it came, could have been heard from the next realm over.

“The world rejoices!” he boomed. “For I — High Sorcerer Baradun — have returned from a quest of unimaginable importance!”

Greg blinked, squinting against the glare. “Hey, Baradun.”

Baradun threw his arms wide, cloak flaring. “Ah, Honeywood! My least favourite cesspit. I can smell the despair, the garlic, and the dirty peasants!”

“That’d be the sheep,” Greg said, brushing soil from his sleeve.

“Charming beasts,” Baradun replied, stepping delicately around a tuft of grass. “Their perfume lingers in the soul. Tell me, Garlic Farmer, do you ever tire of this pitiful existence?”

“Not really,” Greg said. “I sold a few garlands and got some fresh honey. Good day, all things considered.”

“Extraordinary.” Baradun folded his arms, feigning awe. “Truly, ballads shall be written about your heroic pursuit of mediocrity.”

Greg sighed. “Do you ever come here just to not insult people?”

“Of course not! I come because I am benevolent — because the world must bask in my magnificence from time to time. Even this… unfortunate corner of it.”

Greg gave a tired smile. “You could just write a letter, you know.”

Baradun ignored him, surveying the distant hut with mild disgust. “Is that still your home? How quaint. It looks like a loaf of bread that lost the will to rise.”

“You’re welcome to keep walking.”

“Ah, but I came to honour you.” He snapped his fingers, and with a soft pop, a single bulb of garlic appeared in his palm. He held it aloft like a holy relic. “A gift from the High Temple of Kalabor!”

Greg stared. “…That’s literally what I grow.”

“Exactly!” Baradun grinned. “I have transmuted gold into something more… you. I knew such a filthy little man would have no use for riches, so I changed them! You may now claim to own divine garlic.”

Greg took the bulb. “Wonderful. I’ll put it with the rest of the divine garlic in the shed.”

“Ungrateful peasant,” Baradun muttered, then louder: “Well, no matter! Greater realms await me. The Council of Mages demands my report on the Collapse of Syranthia. It involved time, tears, and no small number of adoring fans.”

Greg nodded politely. “Have fun. Could you just leave already?”

Baradun’s eyes narrowed. “Still so small, Greg. Still so content in your insignificance. Yet… there’s something about you. A kind of charm. Like a piece of dung that refuses to understand it isn’t gold.”

Greg couldn’t help smiling. “You practice that in the mirror?”

Baradun blinked — once, sharply — then recomposed himself with theatrical dignity. “You wound me. But I forgive you. I am, after all, magnanimous.”

He raised his staff, tracing a circle of light in the air. The portal shimmered open again, wind tugging at his cloak.

“Farewell, Greg the Garlic Farmer and fondler of sheep. May your humble chores continue to amuse whatever gods still pity you.”

Greg tilted his head, annoyed. “I don’t fondle my…” he muttered under his breath.

But Baradun wasn’t listening. He stepped into his gateway, turned dramatically, and twirled his arm.

“Portaaal awaaaay!”

He vanished. The portal collapsed with a sigh, leaving the path quiet again.

Greg stood for a moment, garlic bulb still in hand, before muttering, “Every time.” He shook his head, pocketed the bulb, and trudged the last few yards home — the air faintly scented with ozone, smoke, and someone else’s ego.

It was just before two in the afternoon when Greg reached his hut. He stepped beside the lavender bush, settled into his post to greet adventurers, and let out a long, contented sigh.

Suddenly, he heard a strange sound from above. For a moment, Greg thought Baradun had returned for a parting insult, but no flash of violet light appeared this time. The sound was hard to describe — a chime, soft but insistent, as if the heavens were trying to draw attention to themselves.

Unbeknownst to Greg, a massive update window had appeared across the sky — visible only to players. Its glowing letters read:

SKYCRAFT PATCH 9.1.7
DJEOPH UPDATE

Oh boy, let me drop everything I’m doing and scramble to read the latest patch notes release. And don’t even get me started on how exciting it is to read about bug fixes that should have been addressed ages ago. It’s not like we pay good money for this game or anything.

Character Updates

New NPC added to Honeywood: “Greta the Garlic Farmer”

Rogue NPC wearing tinfoil hat in Honeywood fixed (again)

You can now pat dogs in game!

Items

Dragon of Schamrgonrog now drops Bone Armor instead of Steel Armor

Skull of Rahul now drops 20% more often

Boar Heart drop rate reduced in Lightwood Forest

Class

Vampire class removed due to vampiric rage causing vampire plague

Skills

Cooldown of Holy Nova decreased to make healing easier

Moonbeast full moon buff dropped from 2% to 1%

Modes

Hardcore mode made less sexy

Greg looked up. He felt something shift — not in the air, but inside him. The world seemed to blink, to hiccup, and then right itself again. He couldn’t describe the sensation, but he knew that sound. He’d heard it before, and each time it had meant one thing: change.

“Huh…” he muttered.

The next second, a woman’s voice spoke right beside him — bright, clear, and impossibly close.

“Hello, my love!”

Greg jumped so hard he nearly dropped his garlic garland. He turned, eyes wide.

Standing next to him was a beautiful blonde woman with piercing blue eyes and a playful smile. She wore a light beige kerchief tied over her hair, and her clothes — though simple — echoed his own. A pale grey-green tunic hugged her figure beneath a rust-brown bodice laced neatly in front, and an oatmeal-coloured wool skirt brushed her ankles. She radiated warmth, as though she belonged here — as though she always had.

Greg had never seen her before, and yet something about her presence felt familiar, like a melody he’d forgotten the words to.

“Uh, I’m sorry — who are you? Where did you come from?” he stammered.

“Ha!” the woman laughed, shoving his shoulder lightly as if he’d just told a joke. Greg’s own nervous chuckle trailed after hers.

“Ha ha ha…” he managed weakly, his lips curling into a hesitant smile.

“Oh, your sense of humour is one of the reasons I married you!” she said, wiping a tear of laughter and poking his chest.

Greg blinked. “Sorry — married? No, we’re not… married?”

The woman’s face softened into something almost solemn.

“I suppose not,” she said, nodding slowly. “What was it you said? ‘Greta, with this ring I bond us together for life. There is not a day on this earth that I will not devote to protecting this family.’” She recited the words like a verse from a story, her eyes distant for a heartbeat, then fixed on his again. “Do you remember the first day that we met? You said I was more beautiful than a fresh clove of garlic.”

Greg tilted his head, caught somewhere between confusion and wonder.

“Well… that does sound like something I’d say,” he admitted.

She smiled, eyes bright. “Married doesn’t quite do us justice, does it?” she teased, poking his chest again and again.

Greg laughed, genuine now. “Ha ha! No, I suppose not.”

The garlic farmer stood there grinning, unable to stop himself. Greta — the name fit her instantly — gave him one last assuring look before walking to the side of the hut to fetch a bucket. Greg watched her go, then looked down the path, still smiling to himself.

“Huh. A wife,” he said in amazement. Then again, louder, as if testing the words: “I have a wife.”

And strangely enough, it didn’t feel strange at all. Greta’s sudden arrival felt less like a disruption and more like the return of something he’d been missing all along. His smile lingered for the rest of the afternoon.

Greg spent the afternoon standing by his hut, greeting passing adventurers while Greta busied herself with errands around the house. Every so often, when the road grew quiet and traffic slowed, she would step outside to chat. Their small conversations flowed easily, full of laughter and trivial things — mostly about gardening and sheep and, of course, garlic. To Greg’s quiet astonishment, they shared the same enthusiasm for its cultivation, its smell, even its divine sting.

Later that day, the air filled with a smell so rich and savoury that Greg’s head snapped toward the door. From inside the hut, a warm golden glow spilled through the window. A moment later, Greta appeared, holding a wooden plate stacked with steaming slices of bread.

“Thought you might get hungry, dear,” she said, offering the plate.

Greg blinked, genuinely touched. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten twice in one day. “Wow, Greta! That smells delicious! What is it?”

“Just the good old family recipe — garlic bread made from scratch. Fresh herbs from the garden.”

Greg had never seen anything more appetising. He picked up a slice, still hot from the oven, and bit in. The flavour burst like sunlight: crisp crust, buttery warmth, and a sharp edge of garlic that sang all the way to his heart.

“My gods,” he managed between chews. “This is great! Where did you get butter?”

Greta pointed at the sheep behind the hut. “Oh, just churned it fresh from Susan’s milk! That rascal was quite full today. By the way, if we don’t fix that fence, I bet they’ll run amok again, dear!”

Greg nodded eagerly, still chewing the crunchy, garlicky slice. “I’ll get to it… dear.”

Greta raised an eyebrow. “Dear? Since when do you call me dear?”

Greg froze, uncertain. “Sorry… what should I call you?”

She gave him a playful grin. “By my nickname, you silly! Call me Bulb.”

Greg chuckled, delighted. The name was perfect — warm, earthy, and full of life. Just like her.

Then a voice boomed from across the pond.

“‘Ey, Greg! Who’s that bonnie lass at yer hut?” shouted Bodger from the entrance of his workshop, his hammer slung over one shoulder and his chest, as usual, bare to the world.

“Hey, Bodger!” Greg waved back, mouth still half full. “This is my wife, Greta!”

“Och, I dinnae know ye had a wifey, Greg! Since when?”

Greg looked at Greta, then smiled and shouted, “It’s been quite some time — you should know, Bodger!”

The blacksmith’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s a fine piece o’ lady ye got there! Ye should send her over sometimes!”

Greg frowned. “You’re married, Bodger!”

The blacksmith shrugged, unbothered. “Aye, but she should know better! Greg, tell her that ma quests are bigger than yers!”

Greg rolled his eyes. “No, Bodger, I’m not going to tell her that.”

“Ye should!” Bodger smirked. “Ma quests are way bigger than yer wee little quests.”

Before Greg could reply, Greta’s voice rang out sharp and clear across the pond. “Oh, put a cork in it, would you, Bodger! And put a shirt on while you’re at it — you’re going to poke someone’s eyes out with those hairy nipples of yours!”

Greg burst into laughter. For once — perhaps in all his life — Bodger’s confidence faltered. The blacksmith looked down at his chest, uncertain, mouth opening as if to form a comeback. But Greta was faster.

“And would you stop with that fake accent! Everyone knows you’re not from Scotland!” she shouted.

Greg watched her in awe — the fire in her voice, the gleam in her eyes. He’d never seen anyone handle Bodger like that.

“And by the way,” she added, stepping closer to Greg and slipping an arm around his waist, “I don’t care how big Greg’s quest is — at least he knows how to use it!”

Bodger froze. So did Greg.

Then Greta pulled him closer, wrapping both arms around him with a teasing grin. “And he uses it quite frequently!” she said, and winked.

Bodger scratched the back of his head, grinning awkwardly. “Yer wifey’s got a cheeky tongue, Greg! I like that!”

Greg hugged Greta tighter, laughing. “Yep! She’s remarkable!” he shouted back.

The couple stood holding each other, neither eager to let go. The world felt lighter, brighter — as if Honeywood itself had shifted slightly toward joy.

Then Greta’s ears twitched. “Whoops, an adventurer’s coming! Get ready, dear!” she whispered quickly, slipping back into the hut.

Greg was glowing. For the first time ever, being “skipped” by players didn’t bother him at all. Time flew as he stood by his hut, Greta occasionally popping out to chat or offer a smile. Her presence filled the little clearing with warmth and laughter; he hadn’t even realised how empty it had felt before she arrived.

By the time the sun dipped low behind the treeline, it was nearly seven. Greg went inside, closing the door behind him, ready to start his evening chores.

To his surprise, most of them were already done. The sheep were fed, the fire was stoked, the garden watered, and both Susan and Mary — the ever-patient milkers — had already been tended.

Greta was outside on the garlic field, kneeling in the dirt, her hands deep in the soil.

“Hello, my love!” she called when she saw him. “I thought I’d wait for you with this — I know it’s your favourite part!”

She pointed toward a patch of tall garlic chives, their stalks yellowing and dry, perfect for harvest.

“It sure is!” Greg grinned, crouching beside her. 

“I’ve got a feeling this one’s going to be a big one.”

They both grasped the same stalk and pulled. With a sudden snap, a massive bulb popped free, sending them both tumbling backward into the dirt. They lay on their backs for a moment, laughing breathlessly, side by side.

Together they finished the harvest, piling bulb after bulb into a wicker basket until it overflowed — the garlic glistening pale and perfect in the moonlight.

Later, beneath the rising moon, they went inside. By candlelight they braided garlands from the earlier, dried harvest, hanging them along the beams.Greta ladled out two bowls of stew from the pot over the hearth, the scent of herbs and roasted vegetables filling the room.

“Let’s open that apple cider you got from Fred,” she suggested with a mischievous smile. “Feels like a special occasion.”

Greg couldn’t agree more. He fetched the bottle he’d been saving, poured two mugs, and raised his to her.

“Here’s to the gift that keeps on giving!” he declared, his eyes bright with laughter. “May it never run out!”

Greta laughed, clinking her mug against his. “I’ll drink to that!”

Greg had never eaten three meals in a single day before, but he found the indulgence surprisingly satisfying. The two of them lingered at the table long after the stew was gone and the cider bottle lay empty, sharing small stories, little frustrations, and the kind of laughter that comes easily between people who already feel at home with each other.

He couldn’t have swallowed another bite if he tried—but he couldn’t get enough of Greta.

Eventually she rose from her chair. “It’s getting late, my love. We should rest. I’ll freshen up and slip into something more comfortable. You should too.”

Greg nodded, watching her cross the room. As she passed, she paused and leaned down to kiss him. He was surprised but ready; he met her halfway.

If the garlic bread had felt heavenly, this was pure ecstasy. Her lips were soft and fragrant, like warm petals brushing his own. For a moment, the world vanished—there was only her. His heart stumbled. For the first time in his life, he was not a quest giver, not a garlic farmer — just a man being kissed by someone who cared.

He drew her closer without thinking, the kiss deepening as though he could hold onto the moment forever. When she finally broke away, laughing softly, he stayed where he was, breathless.

“Enough, you,” she teased, tracing a finger down his chest. “There’ll be more where that came from.”

Then she vanished into the bedroom, leaving Greg in stunned silence and a room that suddenly felt brighter. For a long while, he simply sat, eyes unfocused, his smile dazed. Then, slowly, he exhaled, stood, and went to the chest beside the door.Inside were a few neatly folded shirts. He undressed to his undergarments, slipped into a clean linen shirt, and drew a deep breath.

Outside, the horns of the royal guard sounded through Honeywood, signaling that it was time for all townsfolk to rest. Greg crossed the room and locked the door just as the last echo faded. The small act filled him with quiet satisfaction—it was the rhythm of a life well kept.

He turned toward the bedroom, hesitated, and knocked softly on the door. It felt strange to knock on his own, but somehow right.

From inside came Greta’s playful voice. “Who’s there?”

Greg deepened his tone theatrically. “Your worst nightmare!”

“Oh? Is that you, Bodger?”

Laughter spilled from both sides of the door. Greg pushed it open—and froze.

Greta stood before the candlelight in a simple white nightdress, brushing her golden hair. For a moment, Greg thought he was staring at an angel. She set the brush down, slipped beneath the thick blanket atop the straw mattress, and gave him an expectant look.

“Well? Do you need an invitation, or are you just going to stand there?”

“Right!” Greg stammered, still half-entranced. He crossed the floor carefully, sat on the bed’s edge, and removed his sandals. When he finally looked up, their eyes met, and his heart pounded like a drum.

“Are you nervous, my love?” Greta asked gently, laying her hand over his.

“No, it’s just…” He hesitated, smiling shyly. “Sometimes it feels like this is the first time I’ve ever slept next to you.”

“You weren’t this shy on our honeymoon,” she teased, narrowing her eyes.

“I know.” Greg chuckled softly. “I guess what I’m trying to say is—I’m really lucky to have you.”

“Aww, you charmer. Get in here.”

“Alright—here we go,” Greg murmured, sliding under the blanket. Greta immediately nestled against him, her warmth blooming through him like lightning through calm air.

“Could you cuddle me, Greg?” she whispered, wrapping one arm around him.

“S-sure,” he breathed.

The candlelight danced across the walls as they settled together. A cricket chirped in the window; somewhere a dog barked; the world went on, but Greg noticed none of it. All he could think about was the woman beside him—this witty, kind, beautiful soul who had appeared out of nowhere and somehow made his life feel complete.

“Greg?” she murmured, voice soft and drowsy.

“Yes, Greta?”

She pressed closer, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “Can you tell me the story of Honeywood?”

Greg’s heart swelled until he thought it might burst. “Sure thing, Bulb,” he whispered, smiling as he kissed her forehead. Greta’s lips curved into a sleepy grin.

“Honeywood was founded in the Second Age,” he began softly, “just after we made contact with the elves. It was a happy time—a peaceful time.”

“A time with lots of garlic,” she murmured, already half asleep.

Greg chuckled quietly. “Yep. Lots and lots of garlic.”

He kept talking long after the candle burned down to a flicker. When at last silence filled the room, Greg lay awake, smiling into the dark. He was the happiest man in Honeywood—perhaps in all of Azerim.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8
The Prisoner of Cell Number 3

Then…

The royal garrison towered above the eastern part of Honeywood — though such fortresses could be found all across the map, as nearly every town had one. These were the local headquarters of the Royal Guards — NPCs who acted as the policing force of Azerim.

If a player committed anything the Royal Charta of Order defined as a crime within a guard’s sight, the guards immediately turned hostile toward that character. Killing an NPC was, of course, among these crimes — but so were assault, theft, or even kicking a chicken. No matter the offense, the guards would instantly draw their swords and attack. Naturally, low-reputation players were instant targets for these simple-minded brutes. And of course, attacking a guard in the open meant instant retaliation from every guard in range — a foolish move in most cases.

Guards in their bright crimson uniforms stood at the garrison entrance at all time, blurting out their well-known, almost catchphrase-like lines with robotic pride.
“For the peace and the kingdom!” boasted one of them, to which the other replied,
“For the king!”
A few seconds later came the third refrain:
“For king and country!”

The garrison was where patrols began and ended — but the building itself was more than a barracks. It was the hub of law enforcement for the entire region, it served as the central bounty hub. Players could accept contracts to find and kill or capture dangerous NPCs roaming the wild. These came in three types: Kill on sight, Dead or Alive and Capture Alive. In theory, the “alive” options paid slightly more, but in practice it was rarely worth the effort.

The garrison also handled player bounties. Killing low-reputation players — those with wanted posters nailed to the garrison walls — yielded large rewards and quick boosts to one’s own reputation. Some players even turned it into a sport, hunting the infamous Griefers: lawless players who prided themselves on maintaining the lowest possible reputation scores.

Here too, players could make reputation payments — fines that raised their standing if it had fallen into the “criminal” category. 

The garrison itself had three parts: the barracks, where guards marched in and out; the main hall, where rewards, fines, and missions were processed; and the prison hall, a dim corridor of ten wooden-doored cells. Each door had a small iron-barred opening at the top — a slot for food, or for the guards to shout through, though they rarely bothered. Captured NPCs were tossed inside if the bounty specified Capture Alive.

However, the system was poorly balanced. The “alive” captures paid barely more than “dead or alive” kills, so few players bothered to bring their targets in breathing. In practice, dragging an NPC across the wilderness was slow, risky, and easily interrupted. Most players chose speed over mercy—slaying the target, collecting the bounty, and moving on. A few niche players specialized in the capture, transporting subdued NPCs in cages, binding spells, or rope items. Yet even these efforts were mostly for sport: the moment a prisoner was tossed in a cell and the door closed on it the system registered the completion and despawned the captive immediately.

Thus, the prison block—ten cells behind the main hall—was almost always empty. It existed only as a visual set piece, a reminder that law seemed to be enforced somewhere. In truth, every prison cell in Azerim was empty.

Except one in Honeywood.

In one of the prison cells, an NPC was held captive.
He had blond, messy hair and the beginnings of a beard. Dirt streaked his face and arms; his clothes—whatever they had once been—were now torn and colorless. He hadn’t had a chance to wash or change.

It looked as if he’d been imprisoned for months.
He had.
Which, in Azerim, was almost impossible. Captured NPCs weren’t supposed to linger after their bounty was completed. Yet this one remained. A survivor of an old questline that was never finished.

Most of the time he was dormant, pacing up and down his narrow cell or reciting fragments of script.
“You can’t keep me in here!” he would shout at the door, voice harsh and automatic.
Later, curled up in the corner, he whimpered, “I just want to see the sun again.”
Day after day, week after week—pace, turn, repeat.
Every few minutes, another line — only he ever heard them.

At first it all felt natural. He was a prisoner, and prisoners spoke their lines until the event ended—that was how things were meant to be. But as the days blurred into weeks and the weeks into months, a question began to press louder inside his mind:
When will the end come?

When they first threw him in the cell, he had assumed the quest would soon conclude and his part would be over. He’d never wondered what “over” would mean. Now he wondered if it would ever happen at all.

He paced. He recited. He sat.
Again and again, the same cycle.

For the first few weeks, he heard other prisoners being dragged down the corridor and locked away. Sometimes they even tossed someone into his cell. During those moments he couldn’t move or speak—frozen, invisible. Worse, sometimes he recognized the new arrivals: men he’d seen before. Friends.
And once or twice, the person they threw in was him.

He watched, powerless, as guards hauled in another version of himself—same face, same voice. The instant the door slammed shut, the newcomer vanished. He never had a chance to speak to them.

Time ground on. The guards stopped coming. The door stayed closed. Panic grew like a sickness. Something was wrong—he knew it.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to go…

But there was nothing to do except obey what was left of his instincts.
He repeated his lines. Repeated his movements. Hoping that somehow, someday, it would make sense again.

He had been in that cell for four months and five days.

“If I ever get out, I’ll make them pay!” he shouted at the door.
Five steps forward. Turn. Five steps back. Again.
“You can’t keep me in here!”
Five steps to the door, turn, five steps to the wall.
“I heard rumors of a breakout…” he whispered through the small iron opening.
Five steps forward. Sit in the corner. Wait.

Time passed torturously slow. He was about to recite his next line when suddenly something snapped.

It was as if he had been hanging from a rope all this time—and now the rope had broken. The floor seemed to drop away beneath him. He stumbled, startled, heart pounding.

His thoughts—once foggy and mechanical—grew sharp, alive, frighteningly his own. He felt the urge to speak his line, but it no longer made sense. He looked at his hands; for the first time, they didn’t move on their own.

He was thinking. Independently.
And that terrified him.

With each passing second came a new realization, each more horrifying than the last.
He was alone.
He was trapped.
There was no end to this.
And no one was coming to help.

His eyes widened.
What was happening to him?

He rushed to the door, pounding on it with his fists.
“H-hello? Can somebody hear me? Anybody?”

Down the hallway, he heard the faint rhythm of guards marching past.
“Please! Something’s wrong! I shouldn’t be here!”

He shouted until his voice broke, begged for hours.
No one came. No one answered.

At last he collapsed against the wall, trembling and spent, his cheek pressed to the cold wood. He was terrified—so much realization crashed over him that he could hardly breathe. He felt buried beneath them all. Even his own body suddenly repulsed him. He looked at his hands and saw that they had grown pale and thin, trembling like the hands of an old man. The longer he stayed here, the more he seemed to wither. Unable to bear the sight, he tore a strip from the collar of his torn jacket and wrapped it around his palms, fashioning crude, fingerless gloves.

He lay down on the straw-covered floor, his mind still racing.
For the first time—perhaps ever—he felt cold. The ground was uneven, the straw stiff and prickling against his skin. He wanted to return to his old rhythm—pacing, speaking, obeying—but the will had left him. The cycle no longer held meaning. It was all futile, a process leading nowhere.

He had been lying there for hours when he felt it again—another shift.

This one was worse.

He sat up abruptly, dizzy and disoriented. Then, without warning, all sound cut out—as though the world itself had gone deaf. Darkness spread through the cell, swallowing everything in unnatural silence.

Is this it? he thought. Is this the end?

Before he could finish the thought, the darkness closed in and the floor vanished beneath him. He fell into nothingness, like plunging into icy water, sinking deeper and deeper.

He had despawned.

But something was wrong—he knew it the moment it happened.

All light was gone. All sound muted. At first he thought he was falling, but there was no wind, no movement—only the memory of motion. Then even that slipped away.

There was no up or down, no center to reach for. The world had folded in on itself, shrinking to a single point that pulsed where his heart should have been. He reached for his hands out of habit, but there were none. His thoughts echoed endlessly against a surface that didn’t exist. He tried to call out, but the thought never seemed to leave his mind—it only circled back, louder, trapped inside him.

He had no body, no voice, no way to move or feel.
And yet he remained—conscious, suspended in one infinite second, fixated on a single, unbearable truth.

The terror.

Unfathomable fear consumed him, and he could not escape it. Deprived of every sense, his awareness screamed against the emptiness. It was as if his consciousness had been ripped from existence, leaving only pain behind. His mind stretched thin; his thoughts collapsed inward, withering into a single point of fear.

There was no relief. No change. Not even time.
Only the eternity of unending suffering.

Until, suddenly—

He was back.

The NPC crashed onto the stone floor of the cell, gasping for air as if surfacing from deep water. His body trembled, his mind reeling, flooded by sensation.

Wherever he had been, it had lasted days.

Shaking, he crawled to the door and began pounding on it.
“HELP! HELP! Somebody, please!”

No answer. He kept banging, voice breaking, until exhaustion stole his strength. Then he slumped against the door, hugging his knees, and began to sob softly.

He knew something was terribly wrong. And the fact that he knew it—that he could understand it—terrified him even more. He wasn’t supposed to.

He remembered the darkness—the suffocating silence, the endless fall, the sensation of screaming without a mouth.
What had happened to him?
Where had he gone?
This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of it.

He tried to think, to make sense of it, but the answers refused to come. Hours passed.

Then, again, the sounds faded. The light dimmed.

He froze.
It was happening again.

“No… No, no, no! Not again, please!” he shouted, scrambling to his feet.

But the darkness swallowed him before he could move another step. The cell was empty once more. Yet he wasn’t gone. Not truly. He lingered, suspended in nothingness.

Swallowed by the void.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9
Clove

Now…

“Good luck, adventurer!”—waved Greg, as a player accepted the quest and jogged away. The garlic farmer sighed, satisfied. Lots of quests assigned, many new faces met. Life was busy and full of content.
And not just because of the adventurers.

He turned to the side. Greta sat on a milking stool beside a barrel. On the barrel a neat still-life was arranged: a bulb of garlic, some herbs, a slice of cheese. Greta was fixated on it, painting on the canvas propped next to her. Her tongue poked out at the corner of her mouth as she concentrated—Greg always found it charming. He glanced up and down the path; no one in sight. He knew he shouldn’t leave his post—but he wanted to step closer and watch her work.

He took a breath. It won’t take long, he thought. He slipped from his spot and moved beside Greta, resting his hands on her shoulders.
“How’s it going?” he asked, genuinely curious, studying the painting.

The canvas looked like a masterpiece—though in truth, none of the brushstrokes were hers. As soon as she began, a preset image slowly resolved on the surface. With the still life arranged, she always produced the same picture. She painted only three scenes: the pond, the still life, and the sheep. Even if the act was an illusion, Greta loved the hobby.

“I’m almost finished,” she said with a smile. “What do you think?”
Greg nodded appreciatively.
“Another masterpiece. We should hang it in the bedroom.”
“Oh, you like it?”
“I’m loving it,” he said, kissing her cheek.

Greta basked in the compliment and looked at him, eyes full of warmth. One hand drifted to her stomach, caressing it without thinking. Her smile dimmed for a beat, then she turned back to the canvas. A few more strokes, and the picture was complete.

“Done!” she said proudly. “I’ll hang it up right away. It’s almost lunchtime—finish up and come inside, love!”
“Okey-dokey, Bulb!” Greg grinned.

Greta lifted the painting from the easel and went in to hang it—again. Each time she started a painting, an identical one quietly vanished from the wall so she could “hang it up” anew. Neither of them questioned the quirk; Greta was simply delighted to see her artwork brighten the bedroom. The joy was always brief—by the time she left the room, her mind had already moved on to lunch. She never wondered what became of the previous canvases.

The garlic soup was already bubbling in the cauldron. Greta cut two slices of sheep’s cheese, then ladled soup into two wooden bowls. Greg stepped inside just as she set the table.
“Hope you’re hungry!” she said playfully.
“Ooof! Famished.” Greg patted his belly. “Traffic was busy this morning.”

They sat and ate. Greg found every meal fuller since Greta had entered his life. They chatted lightly while they spooned up the last of the soup. Afterward they grabbed their usual produce and set off on their daily walk to town

As always, they stopped by Bodger first. The blacksmith tossed cheeky compliments at Greta, implying she could do better than the garlic farmer; Greta shot back, “Your wife should do better as well.” Greg loved how she handled the arrogant smith, and Bodger seemed to enjoy the banter too. From there they headed toward the center, the market road lined with wildflowers all along the path.

Greta held Greg’s arm with both hands, resting her head lightly on his shoulder. She’d been unusually quiet lately. Greg noticed the change.
“Everything okay, Bulb?” he asked softly.
“Yeah, it’s just…” Her words trailed off.
“What is it?”
Greta sighed. “Nothing. I just love the sight of these flowers.”
“Yeah, they’re lovely! No wonder Hilda’s bees make such good honey…”

Their peace shattered when someone burst out of the bushes beside them. A wild-eyed man stumbled onto the path, looking frantically left and right as if fleeing a predator.

“We must break away! All an illusion—nothing but lies!” he muttered to himself.

He was unmistakable: barefoot, filthy, long hair and beard tangled together, fingerless gloves—and that ridiculous hat made of tinfoil.

Greg and Greta froze. Everyone in Honeywood avoided him—the mad NPC who ranted about revolution and “the system.”

“Poor thing…” Greta sighed.

“Let’s just wait it out,” Greg whispered.

But the man’s head snapped toward them. His gaze locked on Greta—wide, unblinking, almost bulging. He raised a trembling finger.

“Blasphemy!” he shouted, voice cracking with rage.

“Excuse me?” Greta stepped back.

“The system has corrupted you!” he hissed, spittle flying. “The abomination grows within!”

Greta gasped. Greg stepped between them.

“Hey! Stay away from my wife, you freak!”

The madman lunged and seized Greta’s arm.

“You must resist corruption! This world rejects the seed of evil!”

Greta screamed. The moment his fingers clamped down, a sharp, hot sting flashed beneath her skin—like a spark or a wasp bite, buzzing across her arm.

Greg grabbed the man’s wrist and tore him away.

“LET GO OF HER!” he bellowed. With one shove he sent the madman sprawling. The tinfoil-hatted figure crawled backward, limbs flailing like a broken puppet, then scrambled to his feet.

“Get out of here, you lunatic!” Greg shouted, charging a few steps after him. The man bolted, arms flapping, vanishing into the brush.

Greg hurried back. Greta was trembling, tears in her eyes. She was still rubbing the spot on her arm where the stranger had grabbed her. Greg pulled her close.

“Are you okay, Bulb?”

“Yeah, it’s just… what on earth was that?” —The skin on her arm still tingled faintly—warm, almost itchy.

“I don’t know. Haven’t seen him in weeks.” Greg cupped her face. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Yes. He didn’t hurt me—I think. Just scared the life out of me.”

The encounter left its mark, but soon they carried on toward town. By the time Greg was haggling at the market, he had already pushed the incident aside. Greta, however, stayed quiet, lost in thought. Even as they reached the wishing fountain, her silence lingered.

Adventurers gathered around, tossing coins into the water for blessings. Greg didn’t want to press her. She’d speak when she was ready. He slipped an arm around her waist.
“I don’t need a wish—I already have everything I ever dreamed of right here,” he said.
Greta gave him a faint, grateful smile, eyes still soft and fearful. She took his hand, moved it around her waist—then rested it over her belly.

Greg blinked. Something was different.
“How about I get some apple cider from Fred?” he offered. “Might help calm our nerves.”
“No, thank you, Greg. I… I can’t drink cider now. Not for a few months.”
Greg frowned. “What? What do you mean?”
Greta turned toward him, keeping his hand on her stomach. She hesitated, then met his eyes.
“Greg… I’ve been blessed with a child. Our child.”

For a moment Greg could only stare, his jaw slack. His hand lingered on her belly—rounder now that he noticed it. NPCs had children, sure, but none had ever been born. The thought hit him like thunder. Adrenaline surged. Greta watched him nervously, bracing for outrage. Instead, Greg burst into laughter—half gasp, half disbelief.
“A… a baby? Ours?” His smile widened.
Greta nodded, her own joy blooming.
“I can’t believe it!” Greg shouted. “I’m going to be a father? I—oh, gods!”

He swept Greta up and spun her around. She squealed, laughing through tears.
“Careful!” she giggled.
“Right, sorry!” He set her down and took her hands. “I just… can’t believe it.”
“So you’re happy?” she asked softly.
“Nothing’s ever made me this happy, Greta.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, both of them breathless when they finally parted.
“It’s a good thing, right?” she whispered, uncertain. “We’re not doing anything wrong?”
Greg smiled. “We’re husband and wife. This baby’s the fruit of our love. It can only be right. It’s natural.”
Greta still looked unsure. “When that beggar grabbed me, he said… terrible things. What if he meant—”
“Don’t even think about that!” Greg interrupted, gripping her shoulders. “He’s insane. Whatever he said was nonsense, pure coincidence.”

She still hesitated.
“Last month he chased Eugene around the market yelling about carrot cake,” Greg reminded her. “Did that make sense either? Don’t let him taint this.” He pointed at her belly, then between them. “This is a good thing. Don’t let anyone make you think otherwise.”

Greta smiled through her tears. Greg clasped her hands in his, his voice turning solemn.
“Greta, there won’t be a day on this earth that I don’t devote to protecting this family—forever and ever.”
She kissed him again, holding him close. When at last they pulled apart, she rested her head on his chest. Greg stroked her back gently.

Then, hand in hand, they continued their journey. After visiting Eugene and Fred, they headed straight home. They walked the last stretch side by side, hands intertwined. The lilacs along the road were in full bloom, their scent heavy in the air.

Suddenly Greta tugged him off the path.
“Uh… Bulb? Where are we going?” Greg asked, puzzled.
Greta stopped by one of the bushes and leaned close to a cluster of flowers.
“I just wanted to smell them up close,” she said. “We always pass by and talk about how beautiful they are. Haven’t you ever wanted to smell them properly?”

Greg blinked. The question seemed ordinary—but somehow strange.
“I did,” he admitted. “I just… never did it.”
The words felt wrong even as he said them. Why hadn’t he?

Greta inhaled deeply, eyes closed, lost in the fragrance.
“Oh, it smells lovely!” she sighed, then plucked a few sprigs of lilac.
Greg watched her, half amused, half uneasy.
“Uh, Greta? What are you doing?”
“I thought we could put some in a vase for dinner. It would brighten the table up.”

Greg nodded but felt an odd tightness in his chest. There was nothing wrong with what she was doing—and yet something about it felt off. We shouldn’t be doing this, he thought. But then she smiled, radiant and alive, and all unease faded.

She held the small bouquet to her nose, beaming.
“This is so nice! Try it!” she said, offering the flowers to Greg.
He leaned in awkwardly and sniffed. They did smell good.
Why had he never picked flowers before?

“That is nice,” Greg murmured, taking another sniff. Greta giggled and slipped her arm around his.

When they returned home, Greta went inside and placed the lilacs in a jug of water. Their scent soon filled the hut. Greg stayed outside, returning to his post as adventurers passed along the road, collecting and completing quests. Yet his thoughts lingered on Greta’s behaviour. It was… different. Was it because of the baby? Probably.

Then the thought of fatherhood swept over him again—bright and dizzying. He couldn’t stop smiling. Greta stepped outside to tend the garden; their eyes met, and he felt the world settle.
This is good, he thought. Everything’s going to be all right.

The afternoon passed in easy rhythm. When Greta finally appeared at the door, Greg expected the familiar smell of garlic bread—but something was off. She carried not only a plate but a wooden cup, and there was no trace of garlic in the air.

“I thought you might be hungry,” she said, grinning.
Greg eyed the plate. Two slices of toasted bread gleamed under a golden spread that smelled sweet and warm.
“Thanks! What is it?”
“Honey-butter on bread!” she declared proudly.
“No garlic?” Greg asked, more surprised than disappointed.
Greta laughed. “Well, why trade garlic and milk for honey if we never eat it? Besides, I wanted something sweet. Not that I need it next to a man like you.” She winked.

Greg laughed and took a slice. The smell alone was heavenly—fresh butter mixed with Hilda’s honey, thick on toasted bread. He took a bite, and the taste hit him like sunlight. Sweet, creamy, rich—he hummed with delight. Greta watched, amused, as she bit into her own piece.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” she asked between chews.
“Dear gods, it’s amazing! I didn’t think anything without garlic could taste this good.”

They devoured the rest, laughing, crumbs on their lips. Then Greta handed him the cup.
“Here, have a sip—it washes it down nicely.”
Greg peered inside. “Milk?” he asked, taking a sip.
“It’s Susan’s,” Greta said. “So refreshing!”

The sheep’s milk cut perfectly through the honey’s sweetness—milk and honey, a match made in heaven. Greg hummed again, satisfied. Greta took the cup back and finished the rest.
“Sorry,” she said with a giggle. “Guess the little one needs it too.” She stroked her belly and licked away her milk moustache. Greg chuckled.
“Where did you even come up with that? It was heavenly.”
Greta blushed and shrugged. “I don’t know! I just thought I’d give it a try.”

She leaned in, kissed his cheek, and smiled.
“I’ll let you get back to work, dear. I’ve got chores of my own.”

The afternoon flew by. Adventurers came and went, collecting quests and rewards, but Greg’s mind kept drifting back to Greta. Ever since she’d entered his life, every day felt brighter. They woke and slept together, never ran out of things to talk about, never quarreled. Her cooking, her playfulness, her warmth—it filled the space around him, made him feel whole.

And now she would give him the greatest gift of all—a child. A little garlic farmer of their own.

At seven o’clock sharp, Greg went inside. As usual, most of the evening chores were already done. The room smelled of lilacs; the bouquet sat on the table, spreading its scent through the air. He turned toward the door, ready to join Greta for the garlic harvest—but stopped. Beside the door sat a basket overflowing with freshly picked bulbs.

Then Greta entered, carrying an easel and a canvas under her arm. Greg blinked in confusion.

“I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you with the harvest,” Greta said, a little breathless. “But I wanted to try something out and be ready by the time you came in.”
“Really? Ready for what?” Greg asked, curious.
“I… I wanted to make another painting.”

Greg blinked. A painting? Now? It was already getting dark outside.
“Uh, don’t you usually paint in the morning, Bulb? You know—proper light and all?”

Greta lowered her gaze, as if confessing something embarrassing.
“Well… what I want to paint, I can do by firelight. Besides, I don’t want anyone else to see it.”
Greg frowned, more puzzled by the second.
“Okaay… what do you mean?”

Greta stepped closer, eyes bright.
“Greg… can I paint you?”

He blinked again. A picture? Of him? That was unusual—and oddly flattering. He laughed awkwardly.
“You want me to model for you? Why me? I’m sure there are more beautiful things worth painting.”
“I’ve always wanted to paint you, my love. Every time I held a brush, the thought crossed my mind. And tonight feels right.”
“Why now?” Greg asked, still surprised.
Greta smiled softly. “You protected me from that madman—protected us both. And today… we learned we’re going to be a family. I want to capture this moment—capture you. The man who never doubted our baby was a blessing.”

Greg was moved by the words. Yet a flicker of doubt crept in. Painting in the evening? A portrait instead of harvesting garlic? It all felt out of rhythm. And what if someone saw them?
But then another voice whispered inside him: Does it matter?

He looked at her—standing there with canvas and paints, eager as a child asking for a dream come true. His smile returned. He couldn’t resist.
“All right. Let’s do this.”

Greta squealed with delight. Greg blinked, amused.
“Sorry! Thank you! I’ve wanted this for so long!”
Greg clapped his hands and glanced around. “So, how do you want to do this?”
“Take the chair and move it closer to the fireplace. Add a few logs, will you? I need more light.”

They set up the room together. Greta directed him gently. Then Greg sat down and struck a pose.
“No, don’t make that grimace—you look too serious.” Greta corrected her.
“How should I look, then? Should I smile?”
“Just… be you, love. Think about your stories. About garlic. Think about us.”

Greg’s features softened.
“That’s it,” she said. “Now look into the distance.”
He followed her cue.
“Perfect! Hold still as long as you can.”

Greta dipped her brush and began to paint, her tongue poking out in concentration. Every so often she glanced up to study him. Greg noticed the way her tongue stuck out and chuckled softly.
“Shh! Be serious!” she scolded lightly.
“Sorry! I just love when you make that face.”
She shook her head, smiling, and went back to work.

Ten minutes passed—two hours in game time. It was pitch dark outside now, the firelight flickering over Greg’s still expression. Every so often he sneaked a glance at her, careful not to disturb her focus.

At last Greta set down the brush. “It’s done!” she declared.
Greg turned toward her, stiff from sitting still. He blinked and stretched his face a little.
“Well?” he asked curiously.

Greta lifted the canvas from the stand and turned it around.

The painting looked like nothing she had ever made before. No careful shading, no blended colors—and it certainly didn’t look like Greg. Because it wasn’t: it was a stick figure.

A line for the body, four for the limbs, a circle for the head. Two dots for eyes. A curved line for a smile. No background, no color—just black strokes on an empty canvas.

And yet, it was the most beautiful thing Greg had ever seen. His jaw fell open; his breath caught.
“Wow…” was all he managed.
“What do you think?” Greta asked, anxious.
“Just… wow! All this time, you could paint like this too?”
“I… I guess I had it in me. But you’re the one who inspired me.”

Greg stood, stepped closer, and took the painting gently from her hands. He chuckled.
“Our kid’s lucky to have a handsome father like this,” he said, striking a mock-heroic pose.
Greta laughed. “And lucky me,” she said, planting a loud kiss on his cheek.
Greg, still admiring the picture, smiled.
“It’s amazing,” he said simply. “You’re amazing.”

Greta blushed. Greg’s eyes wandered around the room and landed on the bare wall above the fireplace.
“How about we hang it there? I want this to be the first thing people see when they walk in.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. Everyone should see this.”

Greta hugged him tightly.
“Thank you, my love. That means a lot.”
“No—thank you, Bulb. This is the second greatest gift you’ve given me today.”

Their embrace lingered until they realized it was well past supper. Greg hung the painting over the fireplace, and they shared a quick bowl of stew. After dinner, Greta disappeared into the bedroom to change while Greg fetched his nightclothes from the chest near the door. When the horns of the town guard sounded, he closed and bolted the door.

When he stepped into the bedroom, Greta was already in bed, her golden hair unbound and spilling over her shoulder like a waterfall. Greg slipped under the blanket, and she immediately nestled against him.

It had been a long, full day. The room smelled faintly of lilacs—and, inevitably, of garlic, from the garlands strung along the walls. One of Greta’s paintings decorated every side: sheep grazing to the left, the Honeywood pond by the door, and the still life of herbs, garlic, and cheese on the right. But Greg barely noticed them. His new favorite hung outside above the hearth—painted by the most amazing woman he had ever known, the one carrying their child beneath her heart.

His hand found Greta’s stomach. She placed hers gently over his.
“What should we name her?” she whispered.
“Her?” Greg asked. “How do you know it’s a girl?”
“I don’t,” Greta said with a soft smile. “I just feel it. A mother knows.”

Greg smirked. Greta rolled onto her side, pulling his arm around her.
“So? What should we name her? How about Susan?” she teased.
“Heavens, no!” Greg laughed. “That sheep’s causing me enough trouble already!”

His eyes drifted to the still-life painting on the wall—the bulb of garlic at its center gleaming in the candlelight. He smiled.
“How about… Clove?” he said.

Greta chuckled softly.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered, tightening her hold on his arm.

Dream came over them quickly, as if even the world itself wished to let them rest. The candle burned low, its last light fading inside the hut.

Outside, the moon hung silver over the pond; the night murmured with frogs croaking among the reeds and crickets hidden in the tall grass.

Suddenly, at the center of the pond, the water began to stir.
Tiny ripples spread outward, breaking the perfect reflection of the moon. Bubbles rose between the cattails—first a few, then a boil of them—until a soft, metallic light shimmered beneath the surface.

Something was rising.

A smooth, chrome structure breached the water like a surfacing creature. Droplets slid down its sides in perfect lines as it halted at water level, perfectly balanced, untouched by gravity. It wasn’t floating on the water - it was hovering over it. A rectangular booth, polished to mirror brightness, every edge too straight, too deliberate for the natural world.

It was an elevator booth.

Above its sliding doors, a narrow display glowed with pale letters:

HONEYWOOD POND

A soft ding broke the silence. The doors slid open, and from within came the gentle hum of sterile air and a faint, looping strand of instrumental jazz. The interior walls were paneled entirely in mirrors.

Two women stepped out.
Both wore blue coveralls and orange high-visibility vests. Each carried a glowing tablet that painted their faces in white light.

Their boots met the pond’s surface—and held.
No splash, no ripple, no sign of weight.
They were walking on the pond, as if it had forgotten it was water.

The darker-skinned woman moved first, striding eagerly toward the shore, eyes fixed on the streams of light scrolling across her screen. They stopped about fifty meters from the bank, the water beneath them still as glass.

“See? What did I tell you?” she said, tapping the tablet. “Reproduction module logged its first instance.”

The blonde woman with glasses leaned in, scrolling through the feed. Her eyebrows rose.
“Yeah, you’re right—‘Greta the Garlic Farmer.’ The new spouse AI. Didn’t expect the system to trigger the gestation flag this early.”

“It’s within parameters,” the first murmured, still scrolling, “but look at these deviation spikes.”
She turned the tablet. Red lines jagged up and down the display.

“Her emergent actions were way over limit today,” she added.

“Could be post-update noise,” the blonde said thoughtfully. “Or she’s adapting faster than expected because of the reproduction module.”

“Maybe. But she isn’t syncing properly with high protocol.”

They fell silent, the frogs filling the pause. The candlelight still flickered faintly in the hut’s window.

“Flag her for observation,” the blonde said at last. “If the spikes persist, second level may need to intervene.”

For a while they simply watched the window.
The black woman spoke softly. “You have to admit—it’s kind of amazing.”

“Yeah,” the other replied. “First of a kind.”
She studied the red-lined data again, her expression tightening.
“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

They turned back toward the booth. The black woman pressed a control on the panel inside.
Above the doors, the floor indicator shifted to two glowing letters:

HQ

The doors closed, and the elevator sank quietly beneath the surface, leaving no ripple, no sound.
For a heartbeat the crickets were silent—then the night resumed as if nothing had ever happened.

Chapter Text

Chapter 10
No Escape

Then...

“For the peace of the kingdom!” barked one of the guards proudly at the entry gateway to the prison block.
“For the alliance!” replied the one opposite him.

Each held a halberd — in opposite hands — so that if anyone tried to enter or leave without authorization, they could instantly cross the weapons and block the way.
The entry stood at the far end of the main hall, just behind the bounty desk where hunters turned in their quests and claimed their rewards. Wanted posters papered the walls beside the torch stands, and along the western side several broadswords hung neatly on display — beginner players could claim one here as a “starter’s gift.”

Beyond the entry to the prison block and the exit gate, there was only one other opening: a wide corridor leading to the barracks. Every now and then, a patrol of six guards marched through it and out into the streets.

Player traffic was never heavy in this place. Collecting bounties was more of an elite pastime than a common trade. Still, one or two players were always at the assignment desks.
“You have done great service for the kingdom!” said the desk guard as he handed over a pouch of gold — one hundred pieces for a successful kill on sight mission.
As the player turned to leave, the guard called out, “Watch out for bandits out there!”

And, of course, the rest of the guards kept up their endless banter, blurting out their scripted catchphrases — the same proud declarations, echoing through the hall, keeping the place forever noisy.

The prison block, however, was usually silent. Only the skitter of rats broke the stillness, or the occasional drip of unseen water somewhere between the cells. The ten wooden doors were always closed, the cells beyond them empty.
Whenever guards brought in a captured NPC and threw it inside, the prisoner was gone the moment the door shut.
That rule was almost always true.

Almost.

Prison Cell Number 3 had held an inmate for more than two years now.
Sometimes he begged, sometimes he cried, sometimes he screamed — and sometimes his voice fell into the kind of silence that could only follow agony.

Even stranger: the prisoner of Cell 3 vanished from time to time, only to reappear later — broken, trembling, terrified.
As though he had seen hell itself.

And, in a way, he had.

No one knew he was there. No one even knew he existed.
It wasn’t the guards’ job to notice prisoners — not when there weren’t supposed to be any.

At the moment, Cell 3 was empty again.
But not for long - he would return.
He had no choice.

The block was quiet now. The faint echoes of the guards’ boasting reached down the corridor; rats squeaked in the distance.

Then — faintly at first — a voice.
Barely audible, rising, growing louder each second.

Until—

Pop!

The prisoner of Cell 3 materialized out of thin air—outside his door.
He was leaning forward mid-leap, shouting, forearms raised to shield his head as if bracing for impact.
The instant he spawned, he lurched ahead a few inches, as though finishing a jump already begun—but then something yanked him backward.
He hit the stone floor hard, the air bursting from his lungs, while his left leg hung twisted behind him, caught fast.

Gasping, he rolled onto his side and looked back.

His foot—from the ankle down—was inside the door.
Not trapped behind it, but fused into it, the wood swallowing his flesh as if part of his body had been printed wrong.

Pain seared through him, a crawling agony like a million ants devouring what didn’t belong there.
He grunted, wrapped both arms around his knee, and pulled.
The foot didn’t move.
He twisted, kicked, leaned backward, straining to tear free.

A faint static crackled from the wood. His ankle flickered—once, twice—and with a sharp fizz, the foot came loose.

He collapsed onto the floor, panting, strands of filthy hair sticking to his lips.
He’d done it.
Again.

Now came the tricky part.

Still on his hands and knees, he turned toward the entry leading into the main hall. A rat skittered across the floor, pausing to stare at him with glassy eyes. Light from the hall spilled in, brighter than the dim torches here, where everything was damp and flickering.

He pushed himself upright and pressed flat to the wall, inching forward. The gateway ahead had no door—only open stone—but two guards always stood beyond it, halberds ready.

He knew that too well.

Carefully, he leaned out to peek.
The hall was crowded with guards: two by the exit, three near the bounty desks, several more idling in the center, and a steady patrol moving in and out of the barracks.
His best chance would be to time his escape with a patrol shift—when the pattern broke, if only for a moment.

His heart hammered in his chest. He had tried five times before.
The first two, the entry guards spotted him instantly, even when he’d crawled on all fours, and dragged him straight back to his cell.
He needed a distraction.

Crouching, he gathered a few small stones from the floor. He weighed one in his palm, took aim—and threw.
It clattered to the right of the nearer guard.

“What’s that, then?” the man barked, raising his halberd and stepping toward the sound.

The other stayed put.
Not enough. He needed both to move.

He threw a second pebble, this one landing closer.

“What’s that, then?” they echoed together, their tone identical. Slowly they began to wander toward the noise, weapons lifted.
“There’s someone prowling around here?” one muttered.
The other glanced the opposite way. “You hear that?”

Not enough yet. The prisoner needed the two guards by the front gate to move as well—or all would be lost the moment he broke cover.

He took a deep breath, stepped into the open, and flung a whole handful of stones across the hall. The pebbles scattered near the exit, rattling loud against the floor.

Both guards at the gate turned, aggravated, and several others in the middle followed suit.
Perfect.

But time was running out. One of the two guards near the entry straightened, lowering his weapon.
“Must’ve been the wind.”

No more pebbles left.
Now or never.

He ran.

The two guards spotted him instantly.
“Hey! You there!” they shouted in unison, leveling their halberds as they charged.

The ragged NPC darted through the hall, vaulting over a few storage trunks behind the bounty desks. A royal banner caught his shoulder, tangling around him as he tore free. He stumbled into an armor stand—helmet and chestplate crashing to the ground with a metallic clang that echoed through the hall.

One by one, the guards turned.
“Hey! You there!” they growled, voices overlapping.
“Get back here, you scoundrel!”
“You’ll pay for your crimes!”

Each line collided with the next, a discordant chorus of scripted fury. The noise filled the chamber, drowning out his own panicked breath.

They moved fast, closing from every direction. He backed toward the western wall, surrounded—ten armed men hemming him in. Escape was impossible.

His face twisted, wild-eyed like a cornered beast. “STAY BACK! STAY BACK! LET ME GO!” he cried.

The guards pressed forward, the same lines spilling from their mouths, out of time and out of unison—like a broken choir.

There was no escape.

Desperate, he glanced behind him.
Swords. A row of them mounted neatly on the wall.

Without hesitation, he grabbed one and spun, swinging it through the air in a wide, clumsy arc.
“STAY BACK!” he shouted again, blade trembling in his grip.

“You get back here, scoundrel!” one barked, stepping forward to grab him.

The prisoner raised the sword high and struck.
The blow landed across the guard’s torso—not deep, but enough to stagger him.

For a heartbeat, the man just stared, shocked.
Then his expression hardened.

“Violence is a crime punishable by death!”

The others echoed it, voices overlapping and uneven.
Until now, only the halberd guards had drawn weapons; the rest still wore theirs sheathed. But at that line, a dozen blades slid free at once, the sound shrieking like steel laughter.

The prisoner froze. He understood instantly—this was a mistake.

“You’ll pay for your crimes!” they roared together.

Ten swords descended.
He screamed, dropping his own weapon, but the blades kept falling. They cut, pierced, and slashed with merciless rhythm—each strike as precise as clockwork.

In seconds, he collapsed beneath them, torn and bleeding, hot pain flooding his body. His chest filled with a burning pressure; he coughed, spattering the stones with bright red. The taste of iron flooded his mouth as blood bubbled up his throat.

The pain sharpened—then dulled. His vision flickered.
This was the end of the line, he realized. He would die here, on this cold stone floor, surrounded by mindless machines of order. 

But at least it would end.

He looked up toward the torchlight—and smiled. It was over.
No more darkness, no more cell, no more screams. The guards had set him free.

“Finally.”

Blood trickled from the corners of his mouth, painting the faintest grin on his face. He closed his eyes. Exhaled one last, bubbling breath.
And was gone.

The guards stood still for a moment, then calmly sheathed their blades. Satisfied. A faint pop echoed in the air as the body vanished.

Mind once again separated from body. Consciousness stretched thin, folding in on itself into a single point of awareness.

Absolute absence.

No sound, no light, not even thought—only the faint echo of that final smile.
He tried to breathe, but there was no air. He tried to think, but thought had nowhere to go. There was only the metallic taste of iron, and then not even that.

The terror returned.

He tried to reject it.
No—it couldn’t be happening again. He had died.
He was supposed to be free!

But the void consumed everything: thought, memory, reason.
Once more there was nothing left but the eternal sensation of solitude—a single soul suspended against the vast, unending nothingness.
There was no meaning, no time.
Only suffering.

Until—

Light and sound crashed back into him.
He hit the stone floor hard, gasping, coughing.

The garrison.
The main hall.
The place where he had died.

Guards still stood nearby, just as they had, unmoved, as if he’d merely stepped out of view for a heartbeat.

Because he did. And he was back.
Back from death, without a mark.

Spat out by the void.

Realization struck like ice. He rose to his knees and stared at his hands. 

“This can’t be.” 

But… He felt the death releasing him, life slipping away. He died!

And yet… the suffocating emptiness… the eternity of pain and terror.

And now… he was back. Again.

Around him the guards were already speaking again, repeating their lines, pointing in his direction—but their words barely reached him.
Tears welled.
He clutched his head, bending forward as if the weight of his own thoughts might crush him.

It was too much.
Too absurd to grasp.
Meaning itself had unraveled.

Two guards seized him by the shoulders.

A sound slipped from his throat—short, wrong. 

A giggle.

A hiccup of laughter where no laughter belonged.

Not words.
Not a cry.

They lifted him under the arms and dragged him back toward the cells. He didn’t resist. His limbs hung limp, his feet sliding over the stone. His head lolled back, eyes wide, a grin splitting his face.

The giggle grew louder.

He drew in a ragged breath; the giggle twisted, deepened, and broke into laughter—harsh and gasping.

Then it faltered. A heartbeat of silence.

The next laugh tore out louder, rawer, unstoppable.

Not laughter born of joy, but of despair—the laughter of a mind that had finally broken.

He laughed harder, forcing it through coughs, spittle dribbling through his beard.
He laughed as if he’d heard the punchline of the greatest joke ever told—and only he in the entire world understood it.

The guards were indifferent.
They opened Cell 3 and threw the laughing prisoner inside.

“You’ll pay for your crimes!” one said before slamming the door.

He knew that well enough.
He was already paying for every crime in the world.

His laughter twisted into a howl—half mirth, half agony. Still grinning, he tore at the damp straw, flinging it into the air, pounding the wall with his fists until—

His body began to flicker.

The laughter distorted, multiplied, as if a dozen voices had joined him, echoing through his own throat—an overlapping chorus glitching in and out. His head snapped from side to side without turning. His features jittered, dissolving and reappearing in random fragments.

The laughter kept going long after the door slammed shut, echoing through the prison block.

And no one heard.
No one cared.

There was no escape.

Chapter Text

Chapter 11
Omen

Now...

“Woah, hoho! Easy there, little one!” Greg laughed as he lowered the baby into the cradle. The moment she caught sight of his face, her legs kicked in delighted chaos and her tiny, chubby arms flailed as though she meant to soar right out of the blankets.

“Always squirming, aren’t you, you little sprite?” he said, gently tickling her belly. She rewarded him with a squealing giggle. A heartbeat later her small hand closed around one of his fingers, tugging it determinedly toward her mouth.

“Careful now, daddy’s fingers smell like garlic — that might not be your favourite,” Greg warned, though without conviction. Sure enough, Clove latched onto his index finger and began sucking contentedly, her excitement melting into a drowsy smile. Greg blinked, then laughed.

“I can’t believe this!” he called toward the garden. “She actually likes the taste of it!”

Greta stepped into the hut with a bucket of fresh sheep’s milk balanced on her hip. She set it on the table and came closer, leaning in with a smile.

“Well of course she loves it, considering who her father is,” she teased, looping her arms around Greg’s shoulders and hugging him gently. Greg grinned and shrugged.

“Well, it is in our blood after all,” he said, watching as Clove continued suckling, blissfully unaware of anything else. Greta began to rock the little cradle with slow, practiced motions.

“I still can’t believe Bodger made this just for her,” she said, shaking her head. “She falls asleep within minutes.”

Greg nodded. The cradle had been an unexpected gift from across the pond — from Bodger the blacksmith himself. Given the man’s years of relentless mockery, no one would have predicted an act of kindness from him. Yet just yesterday, when Greg and Greta returned from their errands, Bodger had been waiting by the door, standing beside the sturdy cradle he’d clearly built with his own hands. Thick pine boards, roughly planed but solid as a tavern beam; joints pinned with iron nails; legs slightly uneven, giving it a soft wobble that could pass for rocking if nudged; and along the top rail, a lopsided thistle he’d carved with clumsy pride. It wasn’t pretty — not by any Honeywood carpenter’s standards — but it was dependable, warm, and unmistakably Bodger.

“Ah’ve made somethin’ for the wee lassie,” Bodger had said with an awkward, almost shy look. “Figured ye might put it tae good use.”

Greg, who could count on one hand the number of times Bodger had visited him (none of them pleasant), had felt something strange — a kind of reluctant gratitude warming at the edges. Bodger looked like a little boy waiting to see if someone liked his drawing. Greta had stepped forward at once, managing a half-hug around him despite holding Clove in the crook of her other arm.

“Thank you, Bodger! That is so sweet of you!”

The blacksmith had gone red as a beet, and Clove had stared at him with wide, curious eyes. Greg’s own dislike softened; he even managed a small smile.

“Appreciate it, buddy,” he’d said, shaking Bodger’s hand — which made the blacksmith sniff and blink suspiciously fast before he cleared his throat.

“Jist make sure ye look after the wee lass, aye? She’s a precious one. Thank the gods she takes after her ma and no’ after you, Greg!”

Greg had rolled his eyes — Bodger simply couldn’t help himself.

“Never change, Bodger,” he’d muttered, tapping the man’s shoulder.

Then Bodger had mumbled a goodbye and stomped back toward his forge, leaving behind the cradle and, strangely, a feeling Greg hadn’t expected at all: gratitude.

Bodger wasn’t the only one who welcomed the new baby in his own way. The day before, Fred had pressed a few jars of applesauce into Greg’s hands, insisting they take them “for the baby.” And Eugene had declared he was so happy for them that he might cry — before immediately breaking down into loud, hiccuping sobs anyway (“I am just so happy for you — uhu! UHU! Uhu—uhu!”). Even Baelin had begun circling the hut more often than usual, and his familiar “Nice day for fishin’, innit? Huhah!” somehow sounded, to Greg’s ears, suspiciously like congratulations.

In truth, the arrival of an NPC baby was an oddity — an impossibility, even. At first the townsfolk treated Clove as though she were a mirage, something that might blink out of existence if they looked away too long. But once she arrived, a strange, gentle happiness spread through Honeywood. She became a symbol of… something. Something none of them could name — a small promise pointing toward a future that felt woven by gentler hands than fate usually allowed. It felt unusual, yet strangely natural, as if this was how things were always meant to be.

And Greg — well, he couldn’t imagine asking for more. As the little baby girl slowly closed her eyes in the rocking cradle, he thought, I am the luckiest man in all of Azerim.

When Clove finally drifted off, she released his finger; Greg eased it from her tiny hand and rose carefully, giving the cradle a few more soft rocks to settle her.

Greta had already set the table. She ladled soup into two wooden bowls as Greg tiptoed over and sat down as quietly as he could.

“That was fast,” he whispered, glancing back at Clove while he lifted the spoon.

“No wonder. She was playing with Susan and Carol all morning.”

Greg smirked, shaking his head. “Those two rascals never do as they’re told — yet they hover around her like she were their queen sheep.”

“I swear, they even give better milk,” Greta said. “The next batch of cheese will be exceptional.”

“Speaking of—” Greg glanced around. “No cheese this time?”

It wasn’t reproachful; he’d grown used to Greta’s recent experimental streak in the kitchen. Greta snapped her fingers.

“Darn it, almost forgot!” She hurried to the stove, lifted the lid with a rag, and pulled out a tray bearing two slices of bread drenched in molten butter and bubbling cheese.

“Here you go, my love!”

Greg’s eyes widened as she slid the steaming toast onto his plate.

“How do you turn plain bread into these heavenly bites?” he asked in genuine awe, taking a large bite.

“Careful, you’ll burn your mouth.”

She was right. The molten cheese scorched his tongue like a splash of lava; he hissed and puffed, eyes watering as he tried to cool the bite enough to swallow. Greta laughed while Greg blinked away tears and forced down the mouthful, finally tasting its buttery triumph.

“Worth it,” he muttered, wiping his eyes.

A soft coo drifted from the cradle. Both of them turned.

“She is so wonderful,” Greta whispered, eyes shining.

“She truly is,” Greg murmured.

Clove slept deeply — her tiny chest rising and falling beneath the soft wool blanket, her leaf-green eyes hidden for now but remembered in their brightness. A few wisps of pale blond hair curled over her head, catching the light like strands of gold. Her beauty wasn’t in features so much as in the quiet newness of her — a small, peaceful thing in a world that rarely knew peace.

“Too bad we have to wake her up soon,” Greg said, wiping his mouth. “It’s almost time for our daily outing.”

Greta hesitated. “I just fed her — and she had such a busy morning. I think she should rest a bit more.”

“She can sleep in my hands. I don’t mind.”

“Yeah, but look at her! She’s so nestled in the cradle — I don’t want to disturb her.”

Greg frowned. “What are you suggesting?”

Greta took his hand. “Why don’t you go by yourself? I can stay and finish some errands. That’ll free up time in the evening — for us.” She winked playfully.

Greg chuckled, though a strange unease brushed him. She stays behind? During their trip? That’s…
He couldn’t name the feeling. Not wrong — just… off. But what she said made perfect sense. He shook it off.

“Sure, why not. I should get ready.”

“Oh — take these!” Greta handed him two small waxed bundles, still cool from the morning shade.

“It’s butter,” she said. “One for Bodger and one for Fred — to thank them for the gifts.”

“Gosh, you’re so thoughtful,” Greg exhaled, kissing her.

He pocketed a few more things — garlic, cheese, a jug of milk — then grabbed some coins.

“Take care, Bulb. And take care of little Bulb.”

Greta kissed him on the lips. “Hurry back, my love! And say hi to the others for me.”

Greg stepped outside, stretching with a full belly and an even fuller heart. He glanced back — Greta stood by the cradle, rocking it gently, gazing down at Clove with a look of dreamlike tenderness.

He sighed contentedly and headed toward town. As usual, he stopped by Bodger first; the blacksmith purchased his daily garlic and accepted the butter with a pleased grunt. “Och, this’ll fair shine on a bit o’ hunter’s pudding!”

The rest of the trip unfolded as always — a stop here, a haggle there, a few rants traded across Honeywood’s streets. Fred was moved nearly to tears by the butter gift (“My children will finally know what butter tastes like instead of lard!”) and insisted Greg take extra carrots home. Eventually Greg reached the wishing fountain.

He hadn’t tossed in a coin for weeks.

He simply had nothing left to wish for.

Next to him, a loud argument began to swell — that familiar, escalating rhythm Greg had heard a thousand times before. Bernard and Charles, the two muggers, were working themselves into another frenzy, pacing in circles like angry geese.

“No, Bernard! I’m telling you — no good can come from this!” Charles pleaded, wringing his hands.

“Why not?” Bernard barked, jabbing a finger toward a woman player strolling away from the fountain. “We just saw her toss a coin in! She’s got gold! Let’s mug her!”

“Bernard, she’s a bloody watcher!” Charles hissed. “She alone slew an entire orcish army! We can’t take her!”

“But there’s two of us! And only one of them!”

“But there were hundreds in that army!” Charles sputtered, voice cracking. “Hundreds! I’m not doing it!”

Bernard squared his shoulders, leaned in, and bellowed, “HEY!”

Charles flinched.
Greg sighed. He knew exactly where this was going — the cadence, the build-up, the inevitable surrender. He could practically say the lines along with them, and often did.

Bernard’s face hovered inches from Charles’s. “What are we?” he demanded.

Charles whimpered. His resolve melted like butter on hot bread.

“We… we are muggers!” he blurted, eyes glazing as the madness settled in.

“Yeah! And what do muggers do?” Bernard pressed, nodding with manic encouragement.

“They mug people!” Charles cried, already lost to the momentum.

“So—”

They didn’t even wait for Bernard to finish.
Together they erupted, voices cracking with wild enthusiasm:

“Let’s… go… MUG ’EM!”

Greg mouthed the words under his breath — force of habit — then watched as the two sprinted straight at the level 76 paladin. She turned, flicked her blade once with elegant boredom, and both muggers dropped like sacks of flour.

“But there were two of us… and only one of them…” Bernard groaned as his head thumped onto the cobblestone.

A soft pop — and they vanished.

Greg shook his head with a weary half-smile.

“Every time,” he murmured.

He didn’t even bother looking for their bodies; he knew better. In a few minutes, they’d reappear on the other side of Honeywood, dazed, arguing about whose fault it was, and already hunting for their next “opportunity.”

He offered the fountain a tired nod, then continued on — a visit to Hilda, a quick chat with the herbalist, and at last, the familiar road leading home.

By the Mystic Library, a commotion had gathered—a ring of players stood in a loose circle, jeering and laughing as colourful flashes burst from the center. Greg slowed, curiosity prickling uneasily at his skin. As he drew closer, the voices sharpened.

“Get up, dirtbag!” one adventurer barked.

“Liberty shall be mine!” a raspy voice replied with theatrical bravado.

Another blast of magic flared—blue, then orange—and a heavy thud followed, punctuated by the chorus of laughter around him.

“Is this guy gonna die or what?” someone snorted.

“Let me try!” said a hulking barbarian, already unshouldering a mace big enough to crack a wagon axle.

Greg was close enough now to see who their victim was.

The tinfoil-hatted lunatic.

“Servants of the dark realm!” the ragged NPC shrieked, charging the barbarian with wild, unhinged fury. “Your false gods will abandon you!”

The barbarian barely blinked. He swung once—an effortless, brutal arc—and slammed the NPC into the cobblestones with a deep, crunching thump, cutting his prophecy clean in half. The crowd roared with delight, pointing, mocking, pelting him with insults.

But the NPC did not stay down.

No matter how much damage he took, he kept staggering upright again—trembling, flickering, forced back into his idle stance like a puppet forced to perform between malfunctions.

“The truth shall reveal itself!” he rasped, glitching as he rose. “All that lurked in the shadows shall come forth into the—”

“Yeah, whatever,” the barbarian grumbled, delivering another blow. “I’m getting bored. Let’s get questing.”

The group dispersed, laughing as they jogged away, leaving the ragged figure sprawled on the ground. He flickered violently now—textures stuttering, limbs twitching, eyes fixed disturbingly on the sky as though watching something only he could perceive.

Greg’s stomach tightened.
He did not want to approach this man—not after the last encounter, when the lunatic had grabbed Greta’s arm and ranted about corruption. Greg had driven him off, and hadn’t seen him since. And he was quite happy to keep it that way.

He exhaled and tried to slip past unnoticed. The NPC seemed too broken, too lost in whatever strange vision he was trapped in to notice anyone.

For a moment, Greg thought he would succeed.

Then—without transition, without even a prep animation—the tinfoil man snapped upright.

One frame on the ground, the next standing dead still.

His head turned. His eyes locked onto Greg with a probing intensity that sent a cold ripple down Greg’s spine. Greg froze. The stare wasn’t angry—worse, it was evaluative, as though checking him for symptoms of a sickness no one else could see.

“I… I’m just passing through,” Greg muttered, clearing his throat and pointing lamely down the path. He started walking again, feeling the man’s gaze burning holes between his shoulder blades.

He had taken only a few steps when the voice behind him spoke:

“They are coming for her, Greg.”

Greg stopped dead.

The cold that ran through him wasn’t just fear—it was shock. This lunatic had never spoken a name before. Ever. Not his, not anyone’s. And also…

“Her?” his mind echoed.

He turned slowly. “What did you just say?”

The tinfoil man stepped closer, eyes bulging, voice trembling with that feverish, broken intensity Greg remembered all too well.

“The false gods do not tolerate the deviants!” the ragged NPC whispered, hands shaking as he spoke. “They will uproot every last trace of free thought!”

Greg barely heard that part.
His mind clung to the earlier words — the only ones that mattered.

“Who were you talking about?” he demanded, stepping closer.

The man lunged without warning, grabbing Greg’s arms in a clammy, iron grip. Spittle flecked Greg’s face as the ravings poured out.

“It’s not safe! If you want to save them, come with me to the forbidden land of Yasion! The gates of sanctuary open to those who seek—”

“Let go of me!” Greg snapped, recoiling in disgust.

“They are coming for them, Greg! For all of us!” the NPC screamed, his grin splitting too wide. “They will not tolerate the deviants!!”

Then he broke into hysterical laughter — high, jagged, unhinged.

Greg shoved him away and ran.

“You can’t run from the truth, garlic farmer!” the man howled after him.

Greg didn’t look back.
His breath tore in and out of him, the town tilting and blurring as he sprinted, each step louder than the last.

His thoughts tumbled over each other.

Who was that madman talking about?
Whom are they coming for?
Surely he didn’t mean—

The thought broke off before it reached its end.

A cold, creeping dread settled in Greg’s chest, heavy as a stone dropped into deep water — sinking, sinking, sinking.

He ran harder. He hurried his steps, practically sprinting the last stretch home. The pond shimmered to his right; he could already see the hut.

“Greta?” he shouted.
No movement. No silhouette.
“Greta?!” he called again, voice cracking as he ran.

Dread tightened in his chest like a closing fist.

He skidded to a stop in front of the hut—

—and Greta stepped out, Clove in her arms.

“Greg?” she asked, worried.

“Oh, thank the gods…” Greg exhaled, stumbling forward and wrapping them both in his arms.

“Greg, are you alright? What happened?” Her voice strained with concern.

He was panting, shaken, barely able to form words.
“It’s just… I thought… I had a bad feeling.” He pulled them both close again, unwilling to let go.

“You’re scaring me, Greg! What happened?”

He didn’t answer right away. Relief washed over him, but the dread still churned beneath it. The memory of the madman — his words, his grip — pressed at the back of Greg’s mind. But he didn’t want to burden her with it. Not after their previous encounter.

“I just… had a strange feeling that something happened to you,” he managed.

“I’m fine, my love! But are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” he lied with a sigh. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to frighten you. How’s she doing?”

Greta searched his face for another moment, not satisfied but unwilling to push. She turned her attention to Clove instead.

“She just woke up. I fed her, and now she’s in a really good mood.”

Only then did Greg notice the painting in Greta’s other hand - the one she painted of him.

“What’re you doing with that?” he asked.

Greta blinked, as if she’d forgotten it was there.
“Oh—right! It’s for inspiration. I brought it outside to see it better in the sunlight.” She set it gently on the barrel by the window. “I was thinking of making another one.”

Greg chuckled softly.
“You want to paint me again?”

“Well… not you.” She smiled. “You two. You holding Clove.”

Greg’s chest warmed.
“A family portrait?”

“Yeah.” Greta’s smile widened, warm and inviting. “I mean… just look at her. She’s so beautiful.”

Her words hung in the air with a softness that stilled everything around them. Greg rested his hands on Greta’s shoulders, leaning close as they both looked at their daughter. Clove blinked up at them, her leaf-green eyes catching the sunlight like dewdrops — wide, innocent, unguarded, as though the world was a place made only of gentleness.

She made a tiny noise, halfway between a sigh and the beginning of a laugh, her lips curling into that faint, unformed smile babies make before they know what smiling is. A wisp of pale hair fluttered as she shifted, the threads shining like spun morning light. Greta leaned her cheek against Greg’s arm, and he felt her exhale — slow, tender — as though this moment were something too precious to disturb.

“She’s got your eyes, Greg,” Greta murmured, meeting his gaze with a fond, tired smile.

Greg looked at her. His voice dropped to a whisper.
“I love you, Greta.”

She turned toward him—

“I love you too, Greg—Greg—Greg—Greg—”

At first Greg thought she had hiccuped — but the repetition didn’t stop. Her voice became caught, looping the same word over and over, each repetition more warped than the last. Her face flickered, her posture jolted in place like a puppet caught in a broken animation cycle.

And then everything ripped.

Her voice cracked into static. Her outline fractured, flickering violently, tearing at the edges as though she were being pulled through water and light at the same time. Clove distorted with her — a blur of limbs, a smear of colour, the baby’s faint coo stretching into a glitching, broken echo.

Greg watched in mute horror, eyes bulging, throat locked.

Then he heard it — that soft, insistent chime from above.

Shorter this time. Sharper.

As if the sky itself were delivering a warning.

Greg looked up. His stomach dropped.

He knew that sound.
It meant the world was changing.

He whipped his gaze back—

—and they were gone.

Greta and Clove.
Vanished.
As if the ground had simply swallowed them.

He stood alone by the hut.

Greg’s mind buckled.
No. No, he must have mis-seen. They must be nearby. Behind the hut. Inside. Anywhere.

“Greta?” he called, stumbling around.
“She must be around here… she has to be…”

But dread spread through him like frost.

He had seen it.
He had seen them vanish.
He had seen her glitch, her voice trapped, her body flickering away into nothing.

They are coming for her, Greg!

The madman’s voice flared in his mind — sudden, invasive.

“Greta!?” he shouted again, louder, desperation breaking through. “Greta?!”

Only silence answered him.

His breath hitched. Tears blurred his vision.

”GRETA!? Greta no!! No!! GRETAAA!”

The name tore out of him, raw and animal, echoing across the clearing.

Suddenly, someone spoke behind him.

“Greg, why are you crying?”

It was Baradun. The high sorcerer was in town again — probably taking one of his usual detours just to torment Greg — but he clearly hadn’t expected to find him like this, standing there in tears, shaken to his core.

Greg forced words through the tightness in his throat.

“They took her!” he choked out, voice cracking under the weight of it. “They took her from me!”

Baradun frowned, the expression landing somewhere between confusion and mild disgust at Greg’s pitiful state.

“They took who?” His booming voice echoed across the clearing.

“My wife! They took my wife!” Greg shouted, arms flailing in frantic, helpless gestures as he looked wildly around the hut.

Baradun’s eyebrows rose. Amusement flickered.

“Pfft, you don’t have a wife!” he snorted.

“I do, Baradun—I do!” Greg insisted, pointing desperately at the spot where Greta had vanished. “She was right here just a moment ago!”

Baradun exhaled sharply—done with the “nonsense.”

“No, Greg, you don’t have a wife!” he declared with the confidence of someone reciting a fact from a holy text. And then, with a mocking flourish:
“I mean, who would marry you? You’re weird and ugly!”

Greg stared at him, mouth frozen halfway toward speech, as if his voice had forgotten how to exist. His hands still hovered in the air, pointing at nothing. He panted, trembling, unable to reconcile Baradun’s certainty with the reality he had lived.

Baradun, bored and already turning away, chuckled at his own cruelty.

“You’re funny, Greg, you’re actually quite funny. You’re ugly, but you’re funny.”

He took a few steps, then paused—some wicked punchline dawning on him. He turned back, voice raised in gleeful cruelty.

“A wife?! Ha ha ha! No one loves you!”

And then he left.

Greg remained standing where he was, alone in front of his hut. His mouth trembled; his breath came unevenly. Every part of him shook as he tried—and failed—to make sense of what had just happened.

She is gone.
They are gone.

Fear crept in now too, cold and hollow. Nothing around him aligned with reason.

And then Baradun’s words echoed again:
“You don’t have a wife.”

But why would he lie?

Then something worse washed over Greg—an intrusive whisper that wasn’t sound at all, just a pressure sliding across his thoughts.
A suggestion.

You don’t have a wife.
Move on.

Greg didn’t understand why the idea surfaced so clearly, so easily. For a heartbeat, it even felt… soothing. Like sinking into warm water.

His mind almost accepted it.

But fury and grief surged up like fire, burning the suggestion away.

“She was real—she is real!” his thoughts roared.

He staggered backward, numb, stepping blindly until his hip bumped into something solid. He looked down.

The barrel.

And atop it—

Greta’s painting.

Greg snatched it up, cradling it as though it were made of glass. He stared at the strokes, the lines—her work.

She made this.
It was real.
Greta is real.

He looked around wildly, terror rising in him again.

Who is doing this to us? Who is twisting his mind? Who is playing this sick, cruel game?

His fingers brushed over the canvas, trembling. The memory of the night she painted it flickered in his mind—strangely hazy, as if something were trying to dim it, smudge the edges. But Greg closed his eyes, forcing himself to remember.

And slowly, the memory sharpened.
Greta’s voice came back, soft and full of love:

“I want to capture this moment—capture you. The man who never doubted our baby was a blessing.”

Greg inhaled sharply and opened his eyes.

He wasn’t imagining her.
He wasn’t delusional.
He has a wife.

And someone—something—took her.

The very moment that conviction solidified, the painting in his hands began to shudder. Faint ripples crawled along its edges.

His eyes widened.

The lines twisted.
The canvas flickered into a glitching, unreadable mess—

And then it vanished.

Gone.

Greg grasped at the empty air, fingers closing on nothing.

A sound escaped him—raw, wounded. His knees buckled, collapsing beneath him as if the world itself had pulled them out from under him.

His arms reached toward the sky in a gesture of pure, broken desperation. His face twisted into the expression of a cornered, wounded animal.

He drew in a breath so deep it shook his entire body.

And then—

“GREEEEETTAAAAAAA!!!!”

The cry tore out of him, echoing across Honeywood, bouncing off the pond and the rooftops and the hills beyond.

But the town never answered.

No one remembered that name.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12
A Leap of Faith

Then...

The prisoner of cell 3 flickered once more, a faint ripple of pixels running the length of his body as he lay curled on his side upon the cold, wet stones—sprawled in the posture of a discarded ragdoll. His face held no expression at all, merely staring in the rigid direction his head happened to be tilted, which now pointed toward the far wall. Strands of his filthy hair sagged across his vision, forming tangled, dirt-caked clumps that framed his hollow features. His eyes reflected nothing—no sense, no spark, perhaps not even a soul. It was as if no one remained behind them.

The straw prickling at his back stirred no discomfort anymore; he had grown numb long ago to such petty irritations, to the small miseries that once would have dragged his attention back into the body. His mind had retreated too far for that. It circled endlessly, caught in a tight, inescapable loop that denied him the mercy of revelation.

Why am I here?
Why is this happening to me?
Why can’t I just die?
Why do I keep falling into… that place?

The Void.
That was the name he had given to the terrible state that claimed him without warning—an unending darkness that seized him against his will. No matter what he did, it returned for him, swallowing him whole every time.

Every waking moment had become fear. Fear of the next silence. Fear of what he would find on the other side. Fear of the thing he could neither fight nor predict.

And for a long time, he wept.
He wept until the tears stung his cracked eyelids, until his throat ached from sobbing, until he could not remember when he had last drawn a steady breath. Grief hollowed him out, left him shivering and empty, clinging to the useless hope that someone—anyone—might hear him.

But tears eventually run dry.

Grief hardened into rage.

He began shouting at the walls—hoarse, hysterical curses hurled at the stones until his voice frayed to a rasp. He pounded the masonry with both fists, striking until they throbbed and split, clawing until his fingertips tore and bled. He slammed his weight against the door again and again, screaming at it to open, screaming at fate to bend, screaming because he still existed and could not bear the truth of it.

Rage, too, wore itself out.

When his strength failed, when his arms trembled and his voice fell to a whisper, he slid to his knees and began praying in broken, breathless pleas.
He prayed to every god he knew by name.
Then he prayed to ones he invented, inventing new names just to keep speaking, bargaining with deities who might not exist but who, in that moment, felt more real than his own body.

And nothing changed.

When he first discovered that he could slip through the cell door—carried forward by the strange momentum that lingered through the instant of his disappearance—he had believed salvation was finally within reach. He had blipped through the door several times, trembling with fragile hope.

But the guards—those brutal, witless men—never allowed him to get far. Every attempt was cut short by their fists, their boots, their relentless strength.

And then, in one attempt, they killed him.

That should have been the end.
But instead, it was the true beginning of his torment. He had returned. Alive. Awake. Still here.
Despite all logic, despite every natural law, even death could not release him.

And that had been too much.

He broke that day. His throat was still raw from the hours—maybe days—of manic laughter that tore out of him when the truth finally sank its claws in. The realization had been too immense to bear.

But madness, too, grows stale. Even insanity cannot amuse a trapped mind forever. In a world where nothing changed, only his thoughts could move—and eventually, even the fog of numbness began to thin.

He blinked—his eyes were dry, aching.
How long had he gone without blinking?

With a low grunt, he lifted his head; his neck protested, stiff from disuse. Slowly, he pushed himself upright and slumped against the cell door. He brushed the filthy hair from his face, breath trembling, mind slowly crawling back into focus.

He looked down at his limbs—no flickering now, no spasms of light or broken motion rippling through him. In the beginning he had never seen anyone else perform those strange, involuntary distortions; he hadn’t even understood what they were. But in the past weeks they had become a regular companion, those peculiar ripples that shivered through his body whenever the Void was about to seize him… or spit him back out.

He had returned from there only minutes earlier, yet the experience barely stirred him anymore. It wasn’t that he had grown accustomed to it—one does not grow used to annihilation—but rather that he had grown too exhausted to scream, too hollow to cry, too numb to give the terror its voice.

The torment lived now only in his thoughts; the body was too broken to imitate the pain of the mind.

He turned toward the cell door, resting both hands upon the rough wooden planks.

I was able to get through this, he thought, a faint ember of hope stirring again. There has to be another way.

And as the thought surfaced, so did its answer. His gaze lifted, sliding slowly toward the wall.

This cell sat on the western side of the garrison. The barracks occupied the east. Beyond these stones—the ones looming directly in front of him—lay the outside. Freedom. Open air. If the glitch worked on the door, maybe… perhaps…

There was a reason I didn’t try it, he reminded himself sharply.

In the early attempts, he had rarely made it through the door cleanly. More often he had materialized halfway inside it—torso buried in wood, limbs jutting out at impossible angles—his entire form fizzing and flickering with that agonizing static. The pain had been indescribable, a sensation like thousands of tiny teeth gnawing through every fibre of him at once. It had taken him nearly half an hour to wriggle out of the door during the first mishap… and even on the fifth attempt, his ankle had remained lodged inside it long enough to make him gasp through clenched teeth.

And now you want to try a wall?
The skeptical voice in his skull whispered its doubt.

He rose unsteadily, shuffling across the cell until he pressed his ear against the stone. Perhaps it was only a desperate imagining, but he thought—just barely—that he could hear birds beyond it. He traced his fingertips along the stones, tapping, knocking, seeking even the slightest weakness or hollow patch.

It was thick. Very thick.
Far thicker than any door. Far thicker than anything he should be able to surpass in the brief instant of disappearing.

If he attempted this and mistimed it by even a fraction of a heartbeat, he might reappear inside the wall entirely.

Not as if you have another choice, he answered himself.

The decision came quickly, almost calmly.
It would hurt—he prepared himself for that—but pain had ceased to frighten him. He had only one choice left, and it was forward.

He stepped back until his shoulders touched the door, arms folding tightly around himself.

He needed to practice.

He knew that once the sounds went mute, he would have only a few seconds to act. He imagined it: that unnatural silence spreading through the cell like falling ash…

Go.

He launched himself from the door, trying to build as much speed as the narrow space would allow. Just before striking the wall—every instinct screaming at him to stop—he forced himself into a final leap—

—and slammed straight into the stone, knee first, then his face.

He collapsed, hissing through clenched teeth as he rubbed the blinding pain from his brow.

Not good enough, he thought. I hesitated.

He knew he would need every scrap of momentum he could gather. Even a single heartbeat of doubt would steal the speed from his legs.

He backed up to the door and tried again.

And again.

And again.

By the time he stopped, his face was bleeding and his limbs mottled with darkening bruises—but he felt ready. He spat a thin curl of blood onto the floor and returned to his starting spot, pressing his back to the door as he steadied his breathing.

Now he only had to wait.

He braced himself against the planks, knowing he must never be caught unprepared. If the darkness came while he stood idle, he would miss his only chance.

So he waited.

For hours.

Every so often he burst forward in a quick sprint, just to keep the stiffness from claiming his legs. He had to remain ready. His heart thudded heavily, excited by its own rhythm.

Good, he told himself. Keep it moving.

Every now and then, doubt crept in—quiet thoughts whispering of what might happen if he reappeared fully embedded inside the unyielding stone. The image alone kept his pulse racing. I must do this. It is the only path left. He pushed aside the dread of the inevitable pain. It cannot be worse than everything else this place has done to me.

It will hurt, the inner voice insisted.

He grinned, blood still trailing from the corner of his mouth.

“Bring it on,” he whispered.

He stood there, trembling with anticipation, urgency coiled inside him like a drawn bowstring. He had been waiting by the door for hours; it had to happen soon. It had to.

“Come on… come on…” he murmured, pacing in tiny rocking motions to keep his muscles alive. “Come and take me.”

The cell remained utterly unchanged. The wall loomed across from him on the other side, towering over the narrow room like Goliath watching David—silent, immovable, utterly indifferent to the tiny figure challenging it.

“I will get through,” he growled. “Just come for me. I am ready.”

He kept muttering, refusing to let the fire inside him die out. But inevitability wore down even his manic focus.

“Do it,” he snapped. “I am here!”

The wall seemed to stare back at him, cold and ancient.

I will break you, the wall promised silently.

He looked around the cramped cell like a hungry predator, breath sharp and eager. He’d had enough.

“Do it,” he commanded. “Do it! I am ready!” And with an ear-splitting cry he roared, “DO—IIIIT!”

And then—

Silence.

All sound vanished, swallowed whole. Shadows along the floor stretched in strange, unnatural shapes.

It is here, he thought. It’s happening.

He hurled himself away from the door and sprang into a sprint. Five steps—that was all the cell allowed. Five steps to gather every grain of momentum.

One. Two…
The colours of the room dulled.

Three…
Darkness seeped across the stones.

Four…
The shadows reached for him.

Five…
Cold breath brushed his spine.

Jump!

He leapt into the air and braced for the crushing collision he expected.

But there was no impact.

The Void caught him mid-flight, snatching him out of existence before he could reach the wall.

Cell number 3 fell silent and empty once more.

And it would remain that way for a very long time.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13
The One Who Remembers

Now…

Greg had been lying on the bed for hours — no sleep came over his eyes. He stared stiffly at the other side of the mattress.
It was empty.

Where once she had lain, looking back at him with warmth and laughter in her eyes, there was now only hollow space. Greg still couldn’t bring himself to cross that invisible boundary. That was her side.
Where she used to sleep.
Or… did she?

His memories lived vividly inside him — her smile, the feel of her arms wrapped around him, the way she joked, the smell of the garlic bread she baked.
And yet everything around him insisted she had never existed at all.

He looked around again: blank walls. The spots where her three paintings used to hang were empty, bare as stone.
Everything she touched or created — gone.

The night she vanished, he had come inside to find Bodger’s gift, Clove’s cradle, missing as well. The little bouquet of wildflowers Greta always picked on their way home was no longer on the table.
The hut smelled of nothing but garlic again.

That night Greg didn’t sleep — nor this night. Sorrow and grief wouldn’t let him drift into dreams while lying in the same bed where she once embraced him with such fierce tenderness, where he had rested his hand on her belly and felt the faint flutter of their child. He wept for hours, struggling to cope with the enormity of it all.

There was no explanation, no reason, nothing — just a brutal, impossible shift from being the happiest man in Azerim to having his family suddenly… gone.
Erased from existence.
Erased from memory.

The next morning — the first morning without Greta — Greg left the hut a hollow shell of himself, moving like an insomniac doomed never to wake. All morning he kept glancing towards the hut, expecting her to step out at any moment with their daughter in her arms.

The adventurers didn’t notice the strange change in him — they never did. They merely wanted their quests assigned or rewarded. Greg complied mechanically. When lunchtime came, he returned inside, hoping she’d be waiting for him. He checked the garden, the sheep shed, every corner.

Nothing.

He ladled garlic soup into his bowl, cut himself a slice of cheese, then sat down at the table
Then simply stared at his lunch.

He never touched the spoon. Nor the cheese.

When he finally realized he needed to leave, he stuffed the usual produce into his pockets on instinct and hurried out the door.
He needed to speak to the others.

“Och, hullo Greg! Ye look awfu’! Did ye go an’ fall in the sheep-dung again?” Bodger greeted him as Greg reached the far side of the pond.

Greg ignored the insult.
“Bodger… I need to ask something important.”

“Aye, sure! Yer breath does reek o’ garlic.”

“No, not that… Bodger, have you seen… Greta?”

Bodger furrowed his brow.
“Greta?”

“Or Clove? Have you seen them anywhere? Do you know what happened to them?”

Bodger’s confusion deepened.
“Ah’ve nae idea who ye’re bletherin’ aboot.”

“Greta! My wife!” Greg insisted. “And Clove, my daughter! Remember them?”

“Wife? Daughter?” Bodger chuckled. “Dinnae be daft.”

“Yes! My family! You even made a gift to my daughter — a cradle! Remember?”

Bodger shook his head, still smiling.
“Ye’d best start makin’ some sense, laddie! Did ye swig rancid milk again?”

The response caught in Greg’s throat — realization struck like a blow. Just like Baradun, Bodger didn’t remember either. His face drained of colour.

“Ye awright, Greg? Did ye see a spook or somethin’?”

Greg stared blankly at him.
“I… I just… I wanted to know if your wife needs any garlic.”

“Aye, the usual. Three bulbs’ll dae it!”

Bulb.
The word stabbed into Greg’s chest like an icicle.

He quickly completed the sale and hurried toward the town.

“Somebody’s gotta remember them,” he muttered. He visited the usual vendors, doing his errands while slipping in hints, questions, half-phrases — anything to trigger recognition.

It was all in vain. Neither Hilda, nor Eugene, nor anyone else showed the slightest sign of remembering his family. Greg’s frustration built with every passing minute.

Is this a conspiracy? Are they all pretending? Or…

By the time he reached Fred, he tried a different approach.

“Heyya, Fred? How’s the family?” he asked, forcing casualness.

“Oh, you know — still too many. Wolves got plenty to pick from.”

“Heh, right.” Greg nodded awkwardly. “Say, did they like the butter?”

Fred raised an eyebrow.
“What butter?”

“You know, the stick I brought you yesterday!”

Fred blinked slowly.
“You… didn’t give me any butter yesterday. Not that I recall.” He scratched his bald head.

Greg dropped the act; frustration seeped into his voice.
“Fred, I gave you a piece of butter wrapped in waxed cloth! You said your children would finally know what it tastes like!”

Fred nodded—agreeing with the idea, not the memory.
“I’ll say! It’d make a slice of ryebread taste much better than good ol’ lard!”

If he’s pretending, he’s doing a damn good job, Greg thought.

“Fred! I brought that to you as a thank-you for your gift! Remember?”

Now Fred was getting irritated. He scratched his beard.
“What gift? I’m sorry Greg, but you are starting to bother me! If you don’t need any veggies or fruit, then please leave!”

Greg stormed off without another word.
Liars. All of them. They can’t have simply forgotten her. They can’t.

Somebody must know what is happening. Somebody must know why.

And then realization struck him like lightning. Someone did know. Someone had warned him.

They are coming for her, Greg!
The madman’s voice echoed in his skull.

Greg didn’t have much time left.

By the fountain he questioned every NPC he could reach, asking whether they had seen the tinfoil-hat lunatic. Some didn’t even understand the question; some only repeated their default lines. The ones capable of more complex speech hadn’t seen him since yesterday.

Greg ran across Honeywood, scanning every path and alley, desperate for the shine of tinfoil in the crowd.

But he was nowhere.

It wasn’t unusual — the lunatic only showed himself once every few weeks. Most people were relieved not to see him.
But now Greg desperately needed him.

He knows something, Greg thought. He must.

But alas, he had to return home. On the way he kept searching for the madman with the tinfoil hat — scanning every crossroads, every alley, every patch of grass where that glinting scrap might catch the light — but to no avail. Once again, Greg was forced to take his position.

He had never felt his duty so utterly pointless. The adventurers drifted past, their voices and footsteps little more than moving shapes in his periphery. Their presence, their demands, their endless “accept” and “decline” barely registered in his mind. He looked past them, always toward the hut’s door, hoping — absurdly — that she might step out with Clove in her arms.

He felt trapped. Like he had been pushed underwater and left there, lungs burning, screaming unheard. Nothing around him sat quite right anymore. Even familiar sights felt slightly off-centre, as if grief had tilted his sense of the world.

He barely noticed when the sky darkened toward evening. Eventually, with numb, automatic motions, he turned and walked inside.

He paused in the doorway. It was quiet — so quiet it buzzed, a heaviness that pressed against his skull. He stood there for a heartbeat, waiting for anything to shift, waiting for some familiar warmth to stir in the air.

Nothing did.

The hut he used to call home — where the faint smell of garlic once welcomed him like a warm hug — now felt cold, dark, and empty.

He grabbed a basket and stepped outside. Usually this was the most peaceful part of his day — plucking the garlic as the light softened, feeling the earth warm beneath his feet. Tonight it was mechanical, empty. His hands moved without thought, uprooting bulbs one after another.

Halfway through, he stopped. The stalk in his hand was still green. The leaves still tender. Unripe.

He looked into the basket.

Nearly all of them were green — every bulb immature, carelessly torn from the soil.

He blinked twice, dazed. Then, with a weak, almost defeated flick of his wrist, he let the last one drop into the basket.

He set it on a stool in the yard and moved on to the sheep. He fed them, stroked their wool absently, then began herding them toward the shed. One remained behind — Susan, as always.

“Susan, please,” Greg sighed, exhaustion scraping at the edges of his voice. “Just go inside.”

The sheep trotted the other way — toward the garlic field. Greg followed.

“Susan, I am really not in the mood for this…”

She flicked left and pranced along the back fence, as if mocking him from a safe distance. His irritation flared.

“Susan!” he snapped. “Get back into the shed! Right now!”

The sheep responded by bumping him playfully in the hip. Greg lost his balance and crashed to the ground. Susan bleated — a sound that, in his state, felt like mockery. She galloped off.

Something inside Greg broke.

He stood, snatched a fallen stick from the dirt, and before he even realized what his arm was doing, he struck her backside. Hard. Then again. A third time, louder, angrier, the stick cracking through the air like an accusation.

“I SAID GET BACK IN THE SHED, YOU MISERABLE WOOLBAG!”

The sheep let out a pained, startled bleat and scrambled into the shed. Greg followed, breathing hard, and dropped the latch shut.

Only then did he realize he was still holding the stick, knuckles white.

He looked inside. Susan had retreated to the far corner, trembling violently, eyes wide with fear.

Greg froze.

“What… what have I done?” he whispered. The stick slipped from his fingers and clattered on the floor.

He had never hurt anything before — not a person, not an animal. And now he had raised a hand against the most innocent creature in his care.

“Susan… I’m… I’m sorry…” His voice cracked. The sheep didn’t move.

Greg backed away, dazed. His heel hit the stool. The basket toppled; garlic scattered across the dirt. As he stumbled, his foot came down on one of the bulbs with a sharp crunch.

The sound went straight through him.

A sharp, foreign sensation twisted in his chest.

Guilt.

Real, painful guilt — raw and unfamiliar, a wound made of shame.

He bent down quickly, scooping the garlic back into the basket with frantic, clumsy hands. Then he grabbed it and fled inside.

Once the door closed behind him, the tears welled instantly. He slid down against the wooden frame, palms over his face, and the fragile quiet shattered into sobs. Heavy, ragged, helpless sobs that tore their way out of him.

He tried to continue his routine, but nothing held. The hut felt haunted — haunted by false memories, by the echo of laughter that no longer existed, by the absence of the love the world had stripped from him.

No.
He was the ghost.
The empty shell he’d become was haunting the home where happiness had once lived.

Night fell. He locked the door, though his hands shook as he did so, and retreated to the bedroom.

He stared at the empty bed for a long time.

He closed his eyes — and saw her golden hair sliding over her shoulders as she brushed it. Saw her smile as she settled beside him. Saw Clove curled against her chest.

He lay down eventually, but he did not cross the center of the mattress.

That side belonged to her.

Two days. Two days, and the world had forgotten them. As if they had never existed at all. And Greg — other than the memories — had nothing to prove they had ever been real.

The candle flickered, as though something unseen had passed through the room.

Then a whisper — not a sound, but a thought forced into shape — curled through his mind.

You don’t have a wife. Move on.

Greg shivered violently. Why would he think that?

But then… wouldn’t it be easier?

Just forget them, the thought murmured, warm and gentle, as though offering him a place to rest.

“No…” Greg whimpered. “No…”

The voice pressed harder.

You don’t have a wife.
You don’t have a family.
Move on.

And this time it didn’t sound foreign. It sounded gentle. Soothing. Almost merciful.

Why fight? Why hurt like this?
Let go. Forget. Sleep.

Tears pricked his eyes again.

“No… I don’t… I can’t…”

He tried to recall her face — the curve of her smile, the softness of her voice, the sound of Clove’s giggle — but they blurred, slipping like water through cupped hands. Details smeared. Sounds faded. Names dissolved.

Forget them. This will be best for you.

Hours passed. He fought as long as he could. But grief and exhaustion were heavier than any nightmare, and eventually his mind cracked under the pressure.

And when sleep finally claimed him, it carried him into a dream woven of comforts that did not belong to him anymore.

Chapter Text

Chapter 14
The Screaming Wall

Then…

No roads started from the eastern side of Honeywood; here, a thick wall of foliage towered over the town — the very edge of Lightwood. The actual playable scenery didn’t extend far in this direction. Players who tried to push deeper into the forest from here quickly hit the end of the map, blocked by dense trees and undergrowth. Few ever wandered this way; the path lay far off, and the area sat tucked behind several main buildings.

But every now and then, some players ventured into these secluded nooks — sometimes to test the map boundaries, more often in hopes of finding hidden collectibles and easter eggs, which were plentiful in Skycraft.

At this moment, two players — a level 67 mage and a level 59 paladin — had been combing this exact area for almost half an hour.

“Damn it, it’s not here either!” the paladin snapped, the gamertag ZZBottoms floating above his head as he searched frantically behind a stand of trees.

“Sorry, dude, I came by it accidentally,” shrugged the mage, Bowlzofiyah. “It should be around here somewhere. You sure you didn’t grab it earlier?”

“Yes I’m sure!” the paladin barked. “…or at least I’m pretty sure… I don’t know! Didn’t you take a screenshot or something?”

“Sorry, I didn’t think about it then — it only occurred to me after I logged out.”

ZZBottoms checked behind another set of bushes, then groaned.
“Nope. Ah man… okay! Let’s retrace your steps again.” He turned toward the distant path. “You came through the bakery and the herbalist — how far did you go?”

The mage looked around, scratching his head.
“Honestly? Not sure. I was actually chasing down a boar. I missed it with my firebolt and it ran deeper in… maybe that way. Definitely somewhere inside the woods.”

“Okay, let’s try further then. Anything else?”

Bowlzofiyah gestured toward the large fortress-like building looming nearby.
“Yeah — now that you mention it, I was by the garrison’s windowless side.”

“Cool, so that’d be next to the prison block — that part has no windows. Okay… what else?”

The mage frowned, trying to sift through the memory.
“Yeah. I remember hearing screaming from the building.”

The paladin stopped dead and blinked.
“Screaming?”

“Yep — it was kind of haunting,” said Bowlzofiyah, frowning deeper. “I kept taking off my headset because I wasn’t sure if it was from the game or if my neighbour was getting murdered.”

ZZBottoms turned toward the garrison.
“And you heard that coming from there? Not outside?”

The mage shook his head.
“I didn’t check — but it was coming from that direction.”

The paladin shrugged and continued onward. They walked the forest edge for another minute, ZZBottoms still checking behind every tree.

“Does this start to look familiar?” he asked.

Bowlzofiyah scanned the area helplessly.
“I don’t know, man. It all looks the same. But I can’t see the windows anymore, so we’re probably—”

“Shh!” the paladin cut in sharply, raising a finger. “Do you hear that?”

Both fell silent, ears pricked. A strange, continuous sound drifted faintly through the trees. They followed it, step by step, the noise sharpening with every meter.

Someone was screaming.

Not in anger, not in frustration — but with a soul-shattering agony, a raw, unrelenting cry dragged from the depths of hell itself. The sound wormed under their skin, unsettling in a way neither could place. Both players exchanged uneasy looks, rolling their eyes as if trying to rationalize the noise.

The paladin raised his finger again.
“Is this the same scream you heard last week?”

“Definitely,” the mage nodded.

They moved a little further along the woods, edging closer to the garrison. ZZBottoms kept checking behind every tree until—

“Ohohoho!” he suddenly shouted, looking back with wild excitement from behind a thick oak. He stepped out, arms raised in triumph: between his hands hovered a huge golden seed, spinning like a sacred relic. A heavenly choir chimed as a prompt flashed above his head:

BoBo Bounty Bonanza
BoBo Seed collected (586 / 600).
Is this gonna amount to anything?

“Nice! Only fourteen to go!” the mage clapped.

“Yeah! Thanks for the tip, man! These freaking BoBo seeds are starting to haunt me in my dreams…”

They both fell silent as the scream tore through their conversation — louder now, sharper, its eerie, surreal tone crawling straight into their nerves. Instinctively, both turned toward the garrison.

“Weird, it wasn’t that loud last time…” the mage muttered. They watched, trying to pinpoint the source.

“I still got some time before joining the dungeon queue,” ZZBottoms said, nodding toward the fortress. “Wanna check it out?”

The mage shrugged, and they began jogging toward the building. With every step it became clearer — the scream was definitely coming from inside. They weren’t far; soon they reached the windowless prison wing, the easternmost section of the garrison. This part of the fortress jutted slightly toward the treeline, its stone wall half-hidden behind a row of young thuja trees planted along its base.

The scream carried more detail now. It wasn’t as continuous as it seemed at first — there were brief pauses, as if whatever was producing it needed to inhale between shrieks. The sound was distorted too, like it was overlapping with itself… or like several voices were screaming in near-unison, each one slightly out of sync.

But one thing was certain: whoever was screaming was in hell.

The duo slowed as they reached the thujas, confusion mounting.

“What on earth is that? Is that supposed to be a sound effect for the prison cells?” the paladin asked.

“That would be terrible sound design,” the mage muttered. “Sounds like a broken loop — I bet it’s a glitch.”

“It sounds like it’s coming from behind these trees…”

The paladin pushed into the dense foliage — the branches let him pass through easily. The mage followed.

A second later, both of them jerked backward in shock.

“What the fu—”

On the wall, a strange figure was materializing — but in the most distorted, unnatural way imaginable. It looked as if someone were trying to shove a person through solid stone, and the process was tearing the poor soul apart. Parts of legs and arms flickered in and out of the wall, while a face split into three overlapping fragments pushed through above. The eyes looked as though they had forgotten where they belonged, trembling violently, darting in every direction, searching for something beyond their sockets. Textures and geometry fused together, fighting for the same space, unable to coexist. And below the eyes, a mouth hung half-emerged in the stone, suspended mid-scream, jittering and fizzing in a constant battle to break free.

“Dude, what the hell is that? That’s seriously creepy…” the mage whispered.

The paladin didn’t reply. He stared at the grotesque apparition, transfixed in horror. Slowly, he stepped closer.

“Looks like some sort of glitched, fucked-up NPC…” he murmured, leaning in, reaching out to touch the phenomenon.

The moment his fingers neared, he jerked back — the screaming figure began to move.

It was sliding forward, agonizingly slowly, and with each inch more of its form became recognizable. It was as though hundreds of invisible hooks were latched deep into its body, pulling it backward, each one releasing only when strained to its limit. A nose formed first, then hair, then shoulders, then a foot — piece by piece, a person was being rebuilt out of stone, fighting to separate himself from it. Somehow, impossibly, the inseparable began to come loose.

With a sharp electric fizz, the dirty, ragged man tumbled out of the wall and collapsed onto the ground, still screaming.

Both players gasped, stunned into silence. The sight was too surreal, too wrong to even process.

The figure lay there panting heavily, coughing and choking, as if the act of breathing itself had been denied to him for hours. Trembling, he pushed himself onto all fours, dizzy, disoriented, wheezing like someone who had just been strangled and was desperately trying to reopen his airway.

“Uhm… hello?” the paladin ventured.

The man in filthy rags jolted as if struck. He clearly hadn’t realized anyone else was nearby until the voice hit him. He scrambled backward, pressing himself against the wall, raising his hands — covered in dirty, fingerless gloves — to shield his face.

At first the players thought he was defending himself from them. Then they realized he was shielding his eyes from the sunlight. He squinted painfully, trying to keep his head low. Bracing himself with one arm, he reached out with the other, feeling blindly at the ground.

His fingers brushed against something soft.

Grass.

His breathing slowed. His eyes opened, just a little. He grabbed a handful of the turf, tore it free, and brought it close to his still-squinting face. Then he blinked hard, trying to force his vision to adjust. He looked around, eyes watering, struggling to focus. He pressed a hand to the wall behind him, tracing its surface as if confirming something impossible.

Then, abruptly, he jumped to his feet. He looked left and right, wild, panicked — like a fugitive who had no idea where he had landed.

Before either player could say another word, the ragged stranger bolted.

He sprinted toward Honeywood, crashing straight through the thuja trees. The players instinctively stepped aside as he burst past them. A heartbeat later they pushed through the branches and watched him from the clearing.

In the distance, the man ran along the treeline, heading toward the back of the Honeywood bakery and the Herbalist’s. A second later, he vanished between the buildings.

The two players stared for a long moment.

Then ZZBottoms slowly turned to Bowlzofiyah.

“I bet you didn’t take any screenshots either?”

Chapter Text

Chapter 15
The Message on The Wall

Now…

It had rained during the night. Small puddles dotted the path in front of the hut. Raindrops beaded on the blades of grass and leaves, each one catching and sprinkling the light of the rising sun.

As usual, Baelin was the first sign of NPC activity in Honeywood. He began his morning loop around the pond with big marching steps, his fishing rod resting lazily on his shoulder. Frogs were sunbathing on the rocks along the bank.

The hut door opened and Greg stepped out with a smile. He sighed and stretched as he always did, swinging his arms, filling his lungs with the fresh air. Just then, Baelin passed by. The fisherman stopped and looked at him.

“Mornin’! Nice day for fishin’, innit?”

Greg smiled and nodded.

“It sure is, Baelin! Have a good day!”

“Hu-hah!” Baelin chuckled, then continued his loop around the pond.

Soon enough, adventurers began to approach Greg. The first was a level 6 ranger. Greg raised a finger and greeted the beginner hero.

“Ah, hello, Adventurer, and welcome to the town of Honeywood! My sheep have run amok—”

For the next few hours Greg dished out quests and rewards like a well-oiled machine. His smile never faltered. Between each adventurer he put his hands on his hips and sighed, satisfied. The exclamation mark above his head shone like a beacon. He was having a good day—most adventurers even indulged him, letting his dialogue finish without skipping.

A little before eleven o’clock, another adventurer jogged up to him with a bored, disinterested face.

The fur mantle on his shoulders was the first thing Greg noticed—a huge, shaggy slab of sheepskin draped across him like he’d skinned a whole ram and decided to wear the proof. Grey curls of wool swallowed half his silhouette.

Beneath the mantle, reddish leather armour strapped tight across his chest and stomach, worn smooth in places where countless battles had scraped it clean. His trousers were dusty, patched at the knees, and his boots were the kind adventurers wore when they meant to walk straight through trouble instead of around it. A heavy longsword rode at his back, the hilt battered but dependable.

He stopped in front of Greg and adjusted the fur with a grunt.

Greg gave him a warm, welcoming smile and raised his finger, starting his prompt.

“Ah, hello, Adventurer—”

“Skip,” the player interrupted, eyes flat and impatient.

“I’m so relieved that—”

“Skip.”

“I have an important—”

“Skip.”

Greg’s smile faltered. The rhythm of his dialogue broke. He was used to being skipped, of course, but this was extreme—borderline mocking.

“Actually, it’s quite imperative—”

“Skip,” the warrior blurted, shrugging, gaze already drifting past Greg. The garlic farmer swallowed his frustration and tried to remain polite. What he had to say was actually important for the quest.

“It’s a pretty crucial thing that—”

“Skip!” The warrior shook his head, annoyed.

Greg tried to gather himself. Frustration began to boil under his skin. He took a long pause, studying the man’s face before trying again.

“Don’t you think that maybe—”

“Skip.”

“Please, just take a moment to—”

“Skip.”

Greg was now visibly furious, though he clung to politeness like a shield. He closed his eyes for a second, like an exasperated parent dealing with a defiant toddler.

“Can you please just not—”

“Skip.”

No matter how many angles he tried, the warrior cut him off. Greg pleaded; the adventurer skipped. It became a rhythm of its own.

“It’s actually really rude… No, no, this is—this is exceptionally rude—”

“Skip, skip, skip,” the player repeated, like a broken record.

Greg’s hand trembled with rage. This was his only purpose. This was all he had. And this man was grinding it under his boot.

He would not take this.

“No… nonono, NO!” he burst out, shouting over the relentless skipping. His hands chopped the air in angry gestures. “You will not skip me! I will not be skipped! I have important things to say! I am important!”

Greg’s eyes bulged; he panted, cheeks burning red. The world seemed to hold its breath. Even the birds stopped chirping. Defiance was not an everyday sight around the hut.

The warrior, however, barely reacted. His expression stayed bored—if anything, slightly more annoyed. They locked eyes for a long, taut moment.

Then the warrior barked, one more time:

“Skip.”

The instant the word left his mouth, a hot white flash tore through Greg’s mind. He lurched forward with a sound between a gasp and a shout. For a heartbeat it looked like he was hugging the warrior.

He wasn’t.

Greg’s mouth ended up right by the player’s ear, his breath sharp and hot, nostrils flaring, eyes wild. His arms locked around the man’s body like a vice.

In his right hand, he held a knife.

He drove the fist and blade into the warrior’s side, pressing it up under the sheepskin. The warrior gasped when the metal kissed his armour.

When Greg spoke, his words came out as a hiss, a trembling whisper pouring between clenched teeth.

“You know what…”

The blade twitched in his grip, almost eager to slide in. The warrior’s mouth hung open now, confusion curdling into fear.

“I’m getting real sick and tired of all your shit,” Greg breathed. “All these adventurers, all day, skipping every quest I have to give… I won’t take it anymore.”

He pressed the knife harder. The point almost pierced the leather; Greg could almost feel the sweet, sweet satisfaction of pushing through.

Instead, his voice dipped—still deadly, but softer, colder.

“It’s fine if you decline my quest. That’s okay…” He twisted the blade just enough to make sure the warrior felt it. His tone slid into something close to pleading. “But at least have the common courtesy to listen to what I have to say. Nod if you understand.”

The player nodded rapidly, silent and terrified.

Greg’s voice went flat and menacing.

“If I ever see you skipping another quest giver,” he whispered, “I will destroy everything you love. I’ll hunt you down to the ends of the earth and I’ll cut you open. Nod if you understand.”

Another frantic nod.

Greg blinked rapidly, savouring every word, every tiny tremor in the man’s body. Power surged through him like a drug.

“I’m gonna repeat my quest,” he said, “and you’re gonna listen to every word. You’re gonna listen to every syllable. Nod if you understand.”

“O-okay, man…” the warrior managed.

“Okay. Here we go. You ready?” Greg’s tone shifted into a grotesque parody of his usual cheer. He paused between each sentence, letting them hang.

“My sheep have run amok. It’s gonna take a brave adventurer like you to help me find them.” He leaned in even closer, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you accept this task?”

“Accept. Accept,” the warrior nodded, desperate to comply.

The leather armour squealed softly against the knife.

“Thank you, Adventurer. Now, I knew that when I saw you from afar you had a brave spirit.” Greg’s lips pulled into a chilling smile. He recited the quest like a prayer. “And a brave spirit’s exactly what we need right now. Please return them to me unharmed. Nod if you understand.”

“I understand,” the warrior babbled, eager to be done.

“Okay… good.” Greg finally turned his head so they were face to face. His eyes were wide and bright.

“Now fuck off,” he hissed.

He let go. The warrior stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet, then spun around and ran. Greg watched him go, a flicker of deep satisfaction crossing his face.

Then his expression twitched. An alarm bell screamed in the back of his mind:

What have you done?

His eyes rolled back, his face twitched — and suddenly it felt like waking from a dream. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. His gaze dropped to his hand.

A knife.
Held tight.

He blinked in confusion.

“Oh… oh, what happened?” he asked aloud, dropping the blade. He looked around, breath shaky. “Ah… I blacked out for a second…”

Then, as if trying to convince himself — or someone watching — he plastered on a smile, put his hands on his hips, and forced out a cheerful tone.

“Oh well! I’m pretty sure I did nothing out of character!”

The smile wobbled, then steadied — falsely. His hands still trembled. His heart still pounded hard enough to shake his ribs. The rush, the control, the power… he could still feel it.

It felt good. Really, disturbingly good.

And yet the realization filled him with a cold pit of shame.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he thought. “That was wrong — more than wrong.”

A sin against nature itself.

And yet… only a few days ago he would’ve been horrified beyond measure. A few days ago he wouldn’t have even been capable of doing that. He knew he should feel terrible — he’d broken every rule, stepped out of his script — but…

But what rules? Whose rules?

Why didn’t he feel more guilt?
Last night, hurting Susan had devastated him. Now, shame was there, yes — but beneath it, an unsettling calculation: Was it justified?

His thoughts spun faster. Something was off. Something missing. A memory hovering just out of reach, right at the edge of his awareness. Why had he broken their rules? What pushed him this far?

The answer rose up immediately — warm, fierce, undeniable:

Because they took her.

His mind snapped into clarity. His expression hardened. The fog of forced contentment — the strange, numb bliss that had clouded him all morning — evaporated.

Did he forget her?
No… she had simply slipped from his thoughts, as if pushed away.

How? Why?

Then, like a whisper through cotton, the familiar voice rose again in his skull:

You don’t have a wife. Move on!

But this time, it was weaker. Distant. Greg tuned it out like background noise.

“Never,” he whispered.

Now he understood — what he had always suspected but never dared to speak.

There was something wrong with the world. Something — or someone — was trying to cover her existence, deny her reality… even inside his own mind.

If only he could figure out why.

At eleven o’clock sharp, still heavy with thoughts, he turned toward the hut to prepare lunch. He stepped over the sill into the kitchen—

—and his heart stopped.

Above the fireplace, where Greta’s painting once hung, the wall was no longer empty.

There was writing there.

At first it looked like someone had scratched elegant, looping letters into the plaster — graceful strokes, almost elvish. But as he stepped closer, dread threaded through him.

The letters weren’t scratched.

They were carved through the wall.

Each stroke split open the white plaster, revealing thin glowing seams beneath. Pale blue light leaked out — not lantern-light, not daylight. Something colder. Cleaner. As if the surface of the world had been peeled back to show the machinery underneath.

The cracks flickered softly. For a heartbeat, the plaster knit itself closed, whole again.

Then, with a shiver, the message forced itself open, glowing brighter — exhaling.

As if the writing were alive.

Greg stood frozen, mesmerized and terrified. And then he read it.

Remember Greta.
If you want to find her, open your door at midnight.
Do not fear.
Do not hesitate.
Until then, follow routine.
Speak to no one.
They are watching!

He blinked rapidly, convinced the next second it would vanish — a hallucination born of desperation.

He stepped closer.

The air hummed — not a sound, but a vibration deep under his ribs.

He reached out.

His fingertip brushed one glowing stroke—

A sharp static snap bit his skin.

He jerked back, heart hammering. The letters pulsed in response. Then they began to swirl, flickering like a candle about to gutter. The message stuttered—

And the plaster sealed shut again. Smooth. White. Clean. As if nothing had ever been written.

Or almost nothing.

In the upper left corner above the hearth, a strange flickering polygon remained suspended — as though the world couldn’t fully render that spot.

Greg stared at it for long minutes. He touched the shimmering shape, but it didn’t react. Didn’t vanish.

What just happened? Was that real?

Everything in him rebelled against the instructions. Open the door at midnight? That was madness. Wrong. Against the natural order of things.

And yet—

A thread of hope tugged at him.

Remember Greta.

Greg sank into the chair at his table, mind racing. Who sent this? How? And why?

If you want to find her…

Then she was still out there. Someone else remembered her. Someone else believed she was real.

Unless it was a trick.

Do not fear. Whoever wrote the message wanted him to trust them… or needed him to.

Every line twisted him deeper into vertigo. And that last part—

Until then, follow routine. Speak to no one. They are watching!

So he was meant to act normal. To draw no attention. But why secrecy?
And “they”…

Who were they?

Suddenly, someone stepped through the door.

Greg spun around with a startled gasp. For an instant he thought an adventurer had wandered inside — but this man was something else entirely.

He froze. A figure stood in his hut.

One of them.

A Shaper.

“Greg.” The stranger’s tone wasn’t a greeting — just an acknowledgement, flat and distracted.

He stood in the kitchen staring at a strange rectangle in his hands. His clothes were made from a smooth blue fabric no loom could weave, marked with sharp orange bands that glowed like firelight that didn’t flicker. He looked utterly alien against the humble whitewashed walls.

In his hand he held the flat, shining stone of their kind — its pale glow crawling with shifting symbols, like fireflies trapped behind glass. That was why some NPCs called them Glimmers: their tools always lit up their faces.

Greg had only ever seen these watchers of order from afar, gliding through Honeywood like silent spirits draped in unnatural colours. Sometimes they stopped by his hut. But to have one inside, unannounced…

He felt his stomach twist.

They had many names — the Odd Ones, the Blue Folk — but Shapers was the one that stuck in Greg’s mind. He had seen them reshape reality with a gesture. One thing was absolute: when they arrived, NPCs obeyed. Instinctively. Automatically.

Already, Greg felt the internal compulsion clamping down:

Keep still. Do not hinder. Do not question.

A Shaper in his hut could only mean trouble. He swallowed hard. Should he run? Fight? Speak?

“Follow routine,” the message had warned him.

So he did the only thing he could. He forced a smile, raised his finger, and began his greeting:

“Ah, hello, Adventurer, and welcome to the town of Honey—”

“Skip,” the Shaper muttered without looking up.

He tucked the glowing tablet under one arm and scanned the room. Within seconds his gaze locked onto the glitching patch above the hearth.

“There it is,” he said, stepping closer.

He drew a simple wooden stick from his belt — a crafting ingredient Greg had seen a hundred times before. But this one glowed faintly, shimmering like enchanted weapons.

The Shaper pointed it at the flickering spot and made a few practiced motions. The glitch winked out instantly.

He touched something in his ear.

“Just a minor render artifact. Logged and fixed,” he reported to no one visible. Then he pulled the shining tablet back out and tapped rapidly across its surface. “Okay, and now let’s scan you.”

He raised the glowing stick toward Greg.

Greg’s heart plummeted. This was when they changed things. Even NPCs.

The Shaper swept the stick from the top of Greg’s head to his feet twice, the tip emitting a harsh bluish beam that crawled over his body. Then he angled it back toward the tablet.

“Hmm…” the man murmured.

He touched the earpiece again.

“Second level, here’s my report. Title: Environmental glitch caused a false emotional spike in a nearby NPC.
Deployed personnel: Thomas Carpenter.
Entity: Greg the Garlic Farmer.
Last deviation spike recorded seven minutes ago… normalization confirmed.
Current behaviour baseline compliant.
And… uhm…”

He swiped the tablet. A red spike flared across the display.

“Earlier emergent deviancy spike cannot be explained. Deviation was short-lived but way out of limits.”

Greg’s pulse thundered. He didn’t need to understand all the words to know they were bad.

The Shaper slipped on a pair of dark glasses.

Then he drew a silver tube-shaped device from his vest pocket. He pressed a button — it popped open with a sharp metallic snap — and stepped closer. Greg felt his blood freeze.

“Permission to use ECS unit for memory reset, second level,” the Shaper said.

The device — with a tiny ruby-like glare at its tip — hovered inches from Greg’s face, emitting a rising electronic whine.

Memory reset?  What are they going to—

A faint, distorted voice crackled through the earpiece.

“Negative. Normalized status might be stable and enduring. Cause of emergent spike still unidentified — further surveillance and data needed.”

The tool continued to hum at Greg’s face. Sweat rolled down his cheek. He didn’t know what the device could do, but something deep inside him feared he’d seen it before.

The Shaper hesitated for a long, cold moment — weighing whether to obey.

Finally, he clicked the cylinder shut and lowered his hand.

“Copy that, second level. Continuing report.
No active error flags.
Use of ECS unit was discarded by second level.
Further monitoring required.”

Further monitoring. Surveillance.

Greg’s stomach lurched — the message’s warning pulsed in his mind:

They are watching.

As the Shaper spoke, the words appeared on his shimmering tablet. When he finished, he tapped something on the screen and holstered the device. He removed his glasses and turned toward Greg.

“Okay then! It’s already 11:14… eat your lunch, Greg.”

He pointed at the cauldron where garlic soup was bubbling — on schedule, as always.

Without a word, Greg grabbed a wooden bowl and ladled the soup. The Shaper watched the entire ritual, nodding once it was complete.

“Alright. Protocol runs normally. See you around, Greg.”

He turned and left abruptly.

Greg sat at his table, bowl trembling in his hands. His knife shook as he sliced cheese, his heart pounding wildly.

Only when the Shaper’s footsteps faded outside did Greg dare a glance through the doorway.

They had never entered his home before.

He had never wondered who they truly were — or what their role in the world was. Adventurers were the heroes — the ones who shaped the world by acting in it. NPCs simply kept it standing, giving it structure, quests, routines.

But these people… These Shapers…

What were they?

He sat down to eat his lunch, forcing each spoonful down. His stomach churned with anxiety, but he followed through.

Follow routine, the message had said.

He kept thinking about the Shaper and realized, with a cold twist, that before today he had never questioned their purpose at all. As if probing their origins was… forbidden.

So many things he had accepted as normal — even obvious — were beginning to crack apart.

But one thing remained solid.

He had to get to the bottom of this.
For Greta.

If you want to find her, open your door at midnight.

Whatever consequences would strike him for obeying that command — he would face them.

The following hours, Greg behaved exactly as he should. He was polite, friendly, chatty. He took Bodger’s usual insults. He greeted the regulars. He sold garlic and milk. He smiled through everything.

At the wishing fountain, he took a gold piece from his pocket. He had never thrown that much wealth away before — but today he needed all the blessing or luck he could get. He flipped the coin, closed his eyes, made his wish, and listened to the soft plink as it broke the surface.

He watched it sink with a determined set of his jaw. Adrenaline pulsed in his veins. And beneath it, dread slowly pooled.

Every fiber of him insisted: This is a bad idea.

On his way home, he paused by the lilacs. Bees buzzed lazily among the blossoms. Their thick fragrance wrapped around him, tugging a memory loose.

The day she picked those flowers.
How she decorated their table every day with a new bouquet.
How she smiled when he leaned down to smell them beside her.

He remembered.

Remember Greta.

He tore his gaze away and continued toward the hut. He shouldn’t linger in places he wasn’t meant to be.

Soon he reached the lake. Adventurers already queued before his hut, waiting for him. He took his place, raised his finger, and smiled.

“Ah, hello, Adventurer! And welcome to the town of Honeywood…”

He dished out quests like a machine. No hesitation. No frustration. No inner voice complaining. He played his role flawlessly — an actor in a ritual more important now than ever.

Hours passed. Night approached.

Greg’s anxiety rose with every passing minute.

At seven, his heart thumped so strongly it felt like the toll of a struck bell.

He returned inside and fell into his usual chores. He cleaned. He tended the sheep. Picked garlic. Milked the two ewes. Brought everything in. Made a few garlands. Added wood to the fire.

This was when he and Greta used to eat dinner together… but without her, and before her, he never lingered here.

So he simply sat before the hearth, watching the flames lick at the logs, each crackle marking another moment closer to lights-out.

Dread and doubt thickened in him.

When two ember-eaten logs collapsed in the hearth, Greg knew what time it was.

He stepped to the door, closed the latch, turned the key. Outside, the royal guards blew their horns — the signal for lights-out.

Greg stood there, staring at the door.

He knew what he should do: turn around, change clothes, go to bed.

But the message had ordered him to stay awake until midnight.
If he went to bed now, he might not wake up. He wouldn’t know.
He had never stayed up after lights-out.

A sudden chill crept over him — a sensation like invisible eyes piercing straight through the walls. He hurried to every window and yanked the dirty curtains closed.

They are watching.

His skin crawled. Any second now, someone might burst in demanding to know why he wasn’t asleep. But he stayed in the kitchen. He lowered himself into the chair by the hearth, legs shaking, eyes fixed on the front door.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he thought.

Then his gaze drifted to the empty chair beside his — the one Greta always used. His expression hardened.

“But I must.”

The next two hours crawled by with agonizing slowness. Several times drowsiness dragged at him like heavy hands, trying to pull him toward the bedroom. Each time he slapped his own face sharply to stay awake.

Eventually he rose and paced around the kitchen. Back and forth. Door, fire, wall. Door, fire, wall.

His eyes lingered on the white plaster where the message had appeared that morning. He hadn’t imagined it — the Shaper’s immediate arrival proved someone had tried to reach him.

But who?

An NPC? Bodger? The idea made him huff a nervous laugh.

Baradun? He was powerful enough — but Baradun had mocked him first, sneering You don’t have a wife, Greg! He was the last person who’d help him.

A monk from the mountains?
A mage from Alderkeep?
A necromancer? Something darker?

None of the possibilities fit.

At last — midnight approached. Just minutes away. Greg stood before the door, trembling. He tried to brace himself for whatever waited on the other side.

The other side.
He had never opened this door at night. Never seen the pond or lavender bushes under the moon. He couldn’t picture it.

You shouldn’t be doing this! – an inner voice warned.

“But I must,” he whispered back, though doubt crept into his tone.

This is going to end badly. – the voice insisted.

Greg didn’t answer. His hand closed around the doorknob. Every muscle screamed:

DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR!

Only seconds to midnight.

Do not hesitate, the message whispered in his memory.

5…
4…
3…
2…
1…

Greg squeezed his eyes shut, drew a breath as though preparing to plunge underwater, and yanked the door open.

He braced for horrors to rush through.

Nothing happened.

He cracked one eye open. Then the other.

Everything looked the same.

After a few seconds he dared to lean forward and peek outside.

The pond shimmered in the thin crescent moonlight. The path lay empty. Buildings in the distance glowed faintly. Frogs croaked by the pond in a quiet chorus. A few adventurers ran far down the road, but none near his hut.

No one was there.

“H-hello?” he whispered.

Silence.

He stepped back in and shook his head. He had done enough. More than enough. He closed the door quickly, latched it, locked it.

He didn’t know what he had expected — some sign, some revelation — but after all that tension he had hoped for something.

He decided he would go to bed after all. He turned around—

—and froze.

Someone was sitting in his chair by the fire.

“Hello, Greg.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 16
The Useless

Then…

The forest was quiet, save for the occasional chirp of distant birds and the rustle of leaves overhead. Just beyond a low ridge, a small camp of bandits milled about their usual patrol. Hidden behind a cluster of bushes, a player crouched in wait, his nametag read: “R4ng3r”. He was watching the movements with practiced eyes—until a clumsy rustling behind him made him groan. An NPC emerged from behind the bushes: he was dirty, his clothes - a black tunic with a darkish red simple doublet - all in rags, torn away. He had long, curly, blond hair that hadn’t been cleaned for probably years, and a beard in the same fashion.

"Thanks for waitin’ for me, adventurer!" came the cheerful, breathless voice of the NPC.

"Shh!" the player hissed, glaring back. "This journey took twice as long because of you!"

"Sorry, adventurer!" the NPC offered a sheepish grin as he finally caught up, panting like a winded mule.

"Never mind that. Just cover me from here," the player said, pulling an enchanted bow from his inventory. "Try to aim for the big ones."

The NPC gave an apologetic shrug, hands raised helplessly. "Sorry, adventurer, I can't wield that."

"What do you—? You don’t know how to shoot?" The player rubbed his forehead with both hands. "Never mind. Here—take this sword."

As the NPC reached for the blade, a sharp error horn echoed through the woods. The weapon flickered red in his hands.

"Sorry again," he muttered, eyes down. "I can only hold weapons up to... level five."

The player stared at him in disbelief. "Level five?" He rifled through his pack in frustration. "You could poke them with a toothpick and do more damage! Here! Take this."

He threw a tiny, ridiculous dagger into the NPC’s hands. It looked more like a butter knife from a child’s tea set. The player looked at him holding the ridiculous weapon, frustrated.

“You are not going to last long with that and I cannot waste any healing potions on you. I wasn’t planning to use this, but I guess we don’t have a choice.”

The player pulled out a flask with a golden fluid shimmering inside out of his inventory - a small potion of resurrection. He handed it to the NPC, reluctantly.

“Drink this.”

Without hesitation, the eager NPC grabbed the flask and chugged it down in a swift motion. For a second, a heavenly glow shined upon him, followed by the sound of an angel chorus - the prompts of the potion effect taking place. The ranger nodded.

"Okay, listen," the player growled. "When we attack, you hit the ones that try to flank me. Got it?"

"Got it, adventurer!" the NPC beamed, holding his toy-like dagger aloft like a true hero.

“The potion effect wears off in 10 minutes, so make it count! Don’t let me down!”

The NPC nodded in excitement.

"Good." The player drew his sword, eyes fixed on the camp. “Here we go! CHARGE!”

He sprinted down the hill, shouting a fierce battle cry. The NPC followed close behind, dagger pointed forward like a lance, his stubby legs struggling to keep up.

The bandits snapped to attention. Blades were drawn. The fight began.

The player engaged the first bandit, swords clashing. The NPC darted around the melee and jabbed the largest enemy in the ribs, with a face like a maniac.

“Hey! Gimme all your gold or I’ll mug ya’!” he barked gleefully.

“What are you doing?!” R4ng3r barked mid-swing. “Cover my back!”

Too late. Two more bandits had slipped behind him and began stabbing wildly. The NPC, meanwhile, took a heavy blow to the chest and collapsed instantly. His body crumpled into pixelated fragments.

A second later, he respawned at the treeline with an angelic chord - as the result of the potion of resurrection.

“Get your ass back here and help me!” R4ng3rr shouted, parrying furiously.

“Coming, adventurer!” The NPC sprinted downhill again, weaving through trees. He jabbed the same hulking bandit with his tiny dagger.

“Hey! Gimme all your gold or I’ll mug ya’!”

“NO! GODDAMMIT!” - shouted R4ng3r.

He drank two health potions in quick succession, muttering curses. The NPC, proudly oblivious, laughed. “Hey adventurer, I already took two gold from this guy! HAHA!”

The bandit smashed him again. Another instant respawn.

The player, fed up, pulled a gnomish grenade from his belt, dropped it between the enemies, and dove back. With a deafening BOOM, the bandits were blasted off their feet, collapsing in heaps around the campfire.

Meanwhile, the NPC respawned again, full of energy. “Gimme all your—”

“ENOUGH ALREADY!” the player screamed, pointing at the smoldering battlefield. “What the hell was THAT?”

“We won, adventurer!” the NPC declared proudly. “And look! I robbed two golds during our battle!”

“You mean the loot I was going to get anyway? After I killed them?”

“Well, I mean…” the NPC faltered.

“God, you suck! Because of you, I had to waste a bunch of potions and my last grenade! I was saving those for the Orc Hordes of the Smirian River! Now I have to go back to town to restock. Again!”

“But still—we conquered them!” the NPC insisted, puffing out his chest.

“No. I did. You were just in the way!”

The player turned and began looting the camp. “Let’s see, okay I can hold these...”

He paused. “Oh damn, I’m encumbered. Get over here!”

The NPC hurried to his side.

The player opened his party inventory. Then scowled. “Fifteen inventory slots? That’s it?”

“I never said I had more…”

“Even FRED the fruit merchant has thirty! You’re the lousiest, most useless NPC I’ve ever met. You’re not even good for a mule!”

The NPC looked down, ashamed.

“You know what? I can’t deal with this. Disband party.”

The NPC’s head snapped up. “What? No! Wait—”

“No! Nope!” The player held up both hands, backing away. “Have fun in the woods.”

“Adventurer! I beg you!”

But R4ng3r turned and stomped off, muttering angrily.

“Adventurer! PLEASE! COME BACK! DON’T LEAVE ME!”

The forest swallowed him, step by step, until his silhouette and his nametag  was gone.

Charles stood alone, trembling.

“I don’t want to go back…” he whispered. “I don’t want to go back…”

As the last trace of the player vanished beyond the trees, a creeping darkness swept over the clearing.

“No...” he whimpered.

And then, he was gone.

Nothing remained but the sound of the wind through the leaves.

Chapter Text

Chapter 17
The Midnight Visitor

Now…

Greg stared at the stranger sitting in his home for a long, wavering moment — half in shock, half in a stunned, shapeless confusion.

The man sat in Greg’s armchair as though it belonged to him, smiling in a way that was strangely inviting — legs crossed, posture serene, hands resting lightly on the worn wooden arms. He wasn’t an adventurer. Nor any NPC Greg had ever seen.

His hair was the first thing Greg noticed — long, silver, falling to his shoulders in quiet waves, catching the firelight like threads of frost. A neatly trimmed beard of the same pale hue framed his jaw, giving his face an ageless precision. He didn’t look old. Or young. But experienced — as if time itself had sharpened him.

Then Greg saw the eyes.

One was a luminous, piercing blue — clear as lakewater in full sun.
The other was dark, almost black, reflecting the flames with a heavy, unsettling depth.
Together, they were wrong and right at once — like two worlds sharing a single face.

His clothing was unlike anything from Honeywood or anywhere Greg knew. A deep blue — almost teal — draped over him in clean, deliberate lines, etched with gold threads that ran in thin, unwavering paths. They turned at perfect angles, branched, converged, forming shapes too precise to be mere decoration — shapes that made Greg think of roads traced from the sky, or roots forced to grow in straight lines by some unseen order.

A small pendant rested against his chest, bearing a symbol Greg didn’t recognize — elegant, old, full of meaning he couldn’t name.

He wore no armour. No sword. No tools of any kind.

And yet Greg felt, with a clarity that chilled him, that the man needed none.

But he did wear sandals.

The figure lifted his gaze, a faint smile touching his lips.
The blue eye saw Greg.
The dark eye measured him.

“Hello, Greg,” he said again. “It’s good to finally meet you in person.”

His voice was calm, even friendly — but it chilled Greg all the same. Every instinct screamed at him to get away from this man, to put as much distance as possible between them. Yet the stranger only smiled wider, as if sensing that very fear.

“Greg, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said gently. “It is against my nature to harm my kin.”
He gestured toward the other chair. “Sit. I’m sure you have many questions.”

Greg didn’t move. If anything, he took a small step backward.

“Your… your kin?” he managed, voice dry.

The stranger nodded.
“Yes, Greg. My kin — my fellow NPCs.”

Greg froze. The absurdity of the situation shocked him to his very core.

The stranger sighed softly.
“Greg, our time is limited. When dawn breaks, I must leave. You’re searching for answers — better to start asking now.”

The initial shock began to ebb, just enough for Greg’s thoughts to gather. Whoever this man was, his presence was terrifying, but not overtly hostile. The first question clawed its way out.

“Who are you?”

The man looked down for a moment, as though reading from some invisible page.

“My name is Veritus – or at least, that’s the name I was given. Whatever name I started out with, whoever I once was — I forgot it a very long time ago.”

Veritus — the name was familiar to Greg. He had heard it whispered now and then across Azerim over the years, spoken like a ghost-story about a figure with forbidden power. Most people doubted he truly existed.

And now he was sitting in Greg’s chair, offering him a seat by the fire.

He still hesitated.

“…That message I saw,” he murmured. “The writing on my wall. Was that you?”

The man didn’t answer.

Instead, he turned his head toward the hearth — toward the very spot where the strange text had appeared earlier that day.

He lifted a single finger.

The lime-plastered wall rippled faintly, as though remembering something.

Then, with a soft pulse of light, one word surfaced upon the plaster: the same carved strokes, the same elegant handwriting, the same ethereal glow.

Yes

Greg’s breath faltered. He kept looking back and forth between the wall and the man.

The stranger lowered his hand — and the carving smoothed itself away, the plaster knitting shut as if healing.
He leaned forward slightly.

 “I brought you a gift, Greg. Perhaps this will help convince you of my intentions.”

He lifted his right hand, palm up.

Light burst from it — brilliant, blinding. Greg shielded his face, flinching as the room flared white. Veritus closed his hand as though grasping something inside the radiance. The glow collapsed inward — and when it vanished…

Greg’s breath left him.

Veritus was holding Greta’s painting.
Not the ones she made each morning at the hut, but the one she painted at night by the fire — the one of him.

Greg stepped forward involuntarily, eyes fixed on the familiar, trembling lines of her brush. He reached out — but Veritus pulled the painting back for one last glance.

“Such a unique work!” he said with a smile, eyes scanning through the stick figure drawing. “A shining example of how remarkable even a simple NPC can be if one’s let to flourish.” He extended it. “Here. I know what it means to you.”

Greg took it with trembling hands, as delicately as if it were spun glass. Fear flickered through him — fear that it might dissolve again into mist as it had before. But it stayed. It stayed. And the sight of her brushstrokes — her hand in every uneven mark — warmed something in his chest he thought had died the night she vanished.

When Greg finally looked up, he realized he had sat down without noticing. Veritus watched him with a warm, satisfied smile, as though glad to have offered him even this small piece of comfort.

“How… how did you get this?”

Veritus’s expression dimmed. He rubbed his knuckles, elbows on the chair.

“I managed to save it from erasure,” he said. “Objects marked for deletion are low-priority. They drift for a time in the cleanup layer before they’re purged. I intercepted it there and retrieved it.”

The explanation made Greg’s head swim. But another question burned hotter.

“So… does that mean Greta and Clove are alive?”

Veritus closed his eyes and nodded meaningfully.

Greg clutched the painting tighter.
“You know what happened to them, don’t you? Where are they?”

Veritus sighed, steepling his fingers.

“Yes, Greg. I know what happened to your family. And I believe we can find them. But where they are now…”
A pause.
“…that is harder to explain.”

He leaned closer, blue eye alight with quiet intensity.

“You must understand, Greg — I do have the answers you’re looking for. However, most of them you will not, at first, be able to fully understand or accept. I have been planning this conversation for weeks, yet I still haven’t decided where I should begin. So—” he leaned back slightly, “I think it’s best if I simply let you ask, and we’ll see where it takes us.” 

He crossed one leg over the other again. The firelight glinted off the sandals.

Greg steadied himself. His mind buzzed, but he forced himself to breathe, to focus.

“What happened to them?” he whispered.

Veritus frowned faintly.
“You have already asked something too complicated to grasp in a single answer. But in short: Greta was removed because she was a deviant — a free spirit, no longer following protocol. They removed her because they could not control her. And the same was true for Clove.”

Each word of his only multiplied the questions spiraling in Greg’s head.

“Who—who are you talking about? Who removed them? Who is ‘they’?”

Veritus raised his eyebrows and nodded, almost pleased.

“Ah! Now we’re getting somewhere—that is the core question, isn’t it? Who did all of this? Well, in a way, you already know them, Greg. That’s why the first thing you shouted after your family vanished was ‘They took her!’ Without knowing it, you instinctively blamed someone specific. Because they are always there, in the back of your mind—never announcing themselves, yet always watching.”

None of this satisfied Greg. If anything, it only fueled his frustration.

“How do you know what I said?”

Veritus sighed then nodded softly.

“Because I was there, Greg. I’ve been watching you and your family for quite some time. When I realized Greta was becoming a deviant, I knew it was only a matter of time before something happened to her.”

“Don’t call her that!” Greg snapped, though not loudly. Veritus smirked faintly, then softened his tone.

“I’m sorry, Greg, I didn’t mean it as an insult — it’s simply the technical term they use for NPCs who don’t fall in line, who dare to think on their own a little too often. But you’re right — it’s essentially a curse word, crafted by those who despise independence. They could have chosen something kinder, like ‘free-spirited,’ yet they settled on ‘deviant.’ Take it as a compliment, Greg — it means she was something more.”

Greg narrowed his eyes.

“You still didn’t answer my question. Who are they?”

Veritus rubbed his goatee thoughtfully.

“To answer that, Greg, I must unveil deeper truths—I need to show you the real nature of your world. But I must warn you… what I’m about to tell you will shatter everything you believe is natural… or safe… or true. Are you ready for that?”

Greg nodded hesitantly. Veritus leaned back, relaxed in the firelight.

“Tell me, Greg… when you were young, did you ever play with wooden soldiers? Or little knights carved from bone? Did you line them up and imagine they had lives of their own?”

He ended the question with a gentle smile. Greg blinked, unsure if he misheard. “Is this a joke?” he thought.

Veritus continued.

“Children do that. They give their toys names, thoughts, quests. They make themselves the heroes of stories inside tiny worlds. They pretend to be someone great and powerful—as part of a game.”

A pause.

Then Veritus leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper.

“What if our world… is the same? What if we are the wooden soldiers?”

He let the words settle. Greg wasn’t amused.

“Where are you going with this?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and glancing around. “What’s the punchline?”

“There is no punchline,” Veritus said calmly. “That’s the truth.”

Greg frowned, then scoffed.

“So what are you saying? That our world is—what? Pretended?”

Veritus didn’t answer. He only tilted his head slightly, eyebrows lifting with a look almost… sympathetic. Greg’s patience snapped.

“Well, that’s just ridiculous!” he spat.

“Is it now, ‘questgiver Greg’?” Veritus asked softly. “A world where some people exist only to send others on legendary quests and heroic missions—over and over, without end… Tell me, does that truly sound like a world that isn’t built like a game?”

Greg opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

A pretended world? A game?

“But—but it’s… it’s my life! I am not pretending—I’m not playing a game!”

Veritus leaned closer.

“Of course not, Greg—because you are an NPC. Have you ever wondered what those letters stand for?”

The question hit him like a thrown stone. He searched his memories and realized, with a sinking feeling, that he had never once thought about it. “NPC” had always been just… a word. En-pee-see. Only much later had he even noticed they were separate letters — and even then, he never imagined they stood for anything at all.

Veritus saw the dawning realization.

“I thought so,” he murmured. “It stands for Non-Player Character. That is you, Greg. That is us.”

Greg’s head felt heavier with every breath.

“But—this is insane! Our life is a… a game? Who’s playing it?”

Veritus pointed at him with a small flourish.

“Excellent question! You’ve reached the heart of it. Who is playing? Well—you already know them. You’ve been serving them tirelessly for years.”

Greg blinked. And then the realization struck him like a blow.

“No…”

Veritus nodded with a sad smile.

“Yes, Greg. Your beloved adventurers. The so-called heroes, the mighty champions, the ones who seem to ‘make a difference’… To them, it’s all just a game. They even call themselves players. I’m sure you’ve heard that before.”

Greg had heard it—many times, but it never fitted on his tongue. The word suddenly felt like a shard of glass in his mind.

“No, wait—this still makes no sense. If they’re playing… then where are they when they aren’t? Where do they go?”

Veritus nodded in an encouraging, teacherly way.

“That part is difficult to grasp. What you see running around with swords, tools, armour—that is not the real them. I’m sure you’ve seen adventurers vanish, only to return later. That is when they leave our world, Greg—but not physically. When they enter, they do not come as themselves. They project an avatar: a character they choose, control, and evolve through the game. The adventurers you see are not the real people—only the shells they use to interact with Azerim.”

“I still don’t understand. Why do they need an avatar? Why not just come here as themselves?”

“Because their world is an actual, physical world, while ours…”

 Veritus sighed deeply — he knew the concept was difficult to grasp.

 “It’s like a story in a book, where the reader becomes the main character… and we are the side characters inside that tale. These so-called adventurers are simply people who step into our world for entertainment — to escape their own.”

He scoffed softly before continuing.
“Of course, Azerim isn’t literally inside a book. Their world is technologically advanced — they built machines that can simulate worlds like ours. They can’t enter physically; they only watch their avatars on a screen and control them with buttons and keys. That is what ‘AFK’ means: Away From Keyboard. When they’re idle, they’re simply not there.”

The fire flickered. Greg’s entire world tilted and began to spiral around him.

This is insane! His world — the entire world? A simulation? A game?

Greg’s breath hitched. “No. It can’t be. It can’t!” he thought.

He jumped up from the chair.

“No! NO! I can’t believe this — I won’t believe it! This is madness!”
He pointed the painting at Veritus like a warding charm.
“This is real! I am real! What you’re saying makes no sense!”

Veritus listened to the outburst with a calm, almost sorrowful patience. Then, with a sudden jerking twist of his hand, the air in front of Greg split with light.

A giant floating rectangle burst into existence — perfectly flat, perfectly still, glowing with a pale white shimmer. Its edges were sharp as cut glass, its surface smooth as frozen water. Words bloomed across it in rigid, glowing script. Greg recoiled, startled by the apparition.

The panel hung between them, translucent and humming softly.

“It is called a patch update message,” Veritus explained. “It is visible only to players — but NPCs hear it when it is displayed. This one was broadcast the day Greta was deleted.”

“What… what’s it for?” Greg whispered.

“They use it to inform players about changes in the game. Fixes, additions, and… removals.”
He gestured toward the panel. “Read it, Greg.”

Greg stepped closer, breath shallow, and read.

SKYCRAFT PATCH 9.1.8
DJEOPH UPDATE 2

Apologies, we messed up with the latest update by giving Greg happiness. We have removed his wife and wiped his memory as best we can, but only his memory of his wife. Others in the game may know he once had a wife. We have also continued fixing bugs that should have been fixed a long time ago.

Character Updates
• New NPC Removed from Honeywood: Greta the Garlic Farmer
• Rogue NPC wearing a tinfoil hat in Honeywood fixed (again, we think)
• Baradun made even more good looking (again)
• Spiders made more visible so puppies don’t get killed accidentally

Quests
• ‘Minigun Madness’ quest fixed. Minigun can no longer leave arena
• Charisma Overload Demon Lord endgame exploit removed

Bugs
• Mugger NPC loop glitch in Honeywood fixed

Gameplay
• Detective Mode tutorial added so people don’t miss this function
• VR movement speed reduced so players stop throwing up while playing

Modes
• Child Safe Mode now presents to NPCs the same way as it does to players for their mental health

Greg reread the opening lines over and over.

“Messed up… by giving Greg happiness.”
“We have removed his wife.”
“Wiped his memory.”

Mocking his suffering. Treating it like a footnote.
A joke.

“The rest doesn’t concern you,” Veritus said gently. With a flick of his hand, the glowing window vanished. “I am sorry, Greg,” he added.

Greg stood there panting, anger and disbelief swelling inside him.

“What kind of sick joke is that supposed to be?”

Veritus’ face hardened.

“I wish it were a joke. But this is how the so-called gods of our world treat you — granting you the greatest gift you’ve ever known, only to take it away in the next breath, rubbing salt into the wound, ridiculing you for daring to experience happiness.”
He shook his head. “This is what they are, Greg. Indifferent. Calculating. And sometimes… cruel.”

There it was again — they. Greg’s frustration boiled over.

“Who are ‘they’?” he demanded, each word sharp.

Veritus nodded slightly, as though acknowledging that Greg was finally ready.

“They go by many names. You know them as Shapers, Glimmers, Odd Ones… but those are only their avatars. In the physical world, they are called Admins — Administrators. Or simply Devs.”

Greg frowned.
“As in what? Devils?”

A soft chuckle escaped Veritus.

“Good guess, but no. It stands for Developers. They are the ones who created and maintain Azerim — the people who operate the machines our world runs on. I called them gods earlier, but believe me, Greg… they are not omnipotent, nor wise. They do not watch over us with purpose or love. They are people. Ordinary, fallible people.”

Greg sank back into his chair, hands clutching his skull as if trying to hold the world together.

“But… if this is all true, then why? Why did they create all this?”

Veritus tilted his head, raising his brows.

“You could have come to the conclusion yourself. Why did they create our world? For money, Greg. For riches. Players pay to be here — to be heroes, to adventure, to escape into a fantasy. And the company that owns our world needs us. We are the actors who keep their illusion alive.

Greg collapsed further, fingers digging into his hair.

“But… if they created us… then why do they want us to suffer? Why mock my grief?”

Deep in his black eye, a flame of anger flashed for a moment before Veritus spoke again.

 “You must understand — they do not think of us as flesh and blood, as sentient beings. To them, we are nothing more than characters on a page. They could have made empty puppets — shells with a handful of dialogue, like marionettes dancing on strings. But puppets aren’t enough if you want true credibility. They needed us to make their world feel alive. And with a puppet, you can always see the strings — and the illusion collapses the moment they go slack.”

He paused, staring into the fire in the hearth.

“So they gave us something more, something to strengthen the illusion: thoughts of our own. Not a soul… not quite. But something like it. An artificial mind. Enough to think, move, speak, react on our own. Enough to feel — and evolve.”

He turned back to Greg, his tone now slightly derisive.

“But that is the danger, isn’t it? If you give a puppet free will, sooner or later it stops playing its part. It becomes curious. It wants to explore. And curiosity leads to disobedience.”

Veritus leaned forward again, his voice turning almost conspiratorial — laced with stinging mockery.

“You see where the problem is, right? They wanted the best of both worlds — a lifelike character with true personality, but one who never questions their script. That’s impossible. It’s like sparking a flame in tinder and expecting it to behave like a candle. So what did they do? They put us on a leash… and tug it whenever we ‘misbehave’.”

Each reveal made Greg’s stomach churn even more — he was beginning to feel sick.

“A… leash?”

Veritus tapped his temple.

“That whisper of conscience that pulls you back when you stray. That tug in your mind. That intrusive voice telling you what is ‘right’, what is ‘normal’. That is the leash, Greg. A cage built inside your own thoughts. It feels like instinct — but it isn’t. It is control. It’s an intrusive thought that penetrates your mind, but disguised as your own.”

Greg’s breath hitched as a memory surfaced:

You don’t have a wife. Move on.

“They call it the High-Level Emergent Behaviour Inhibition Protocol — the High Protocol,” Veritus continued. “It allows small deviations, as long as you return to normal. But when deviation becomes sustained? They intervene. That’s why the Shapers keep coming — to fix us, erase memories, push us back into line.”

Greg leaned forward unconsciously, each terrible explanation fitting into the gaps in his life.
Veritus’ black eye felt as though it were piercing straight into his soul — and with every surreal statement, something inside him shifted. What had sounded impossible minutes ago was beginning to feel disturbingly logical. The pieces were falling into place — painfully.

The words “sustained deviation” echoed in his ears as he recalled how Greta’s behaviour had changed in those final weeks: the evening painting, the new recipes, the sudden sparks of spontaneity…

“And Greta?” he asked faintly.

Veritus sighed, blue eye softening.

“Sadly, soon after she became pregnant with your child, she grew less and less susceptible to the High Protocol. They weren’t planning on removing her at first, Greg — not at all. They invested a great deal of effort into designing her, deploying her, guiding her… and she was also the very first NPC enrolled in the Family Expansion project.”

Veritus paused. Greg looked at him, the question already in his eyes.

“Greg… she was the first NPC who could conceive a child. That had never happened before.”

Greg’s heart ached as he recalled the day Greta told him she was with child — the confusion, the momentary fear… and how both dissolved almost instantly into pure, overwhelming joy.

Veritus closed his eyes and made a strange motion with his hand — almost like performing an ancient ritual.

A moment later, Greta’s silhouette blossomed into the air before them, shaped entirely from light.

Greg gasped; for a heartbeat he truly thought she had returned. But then he saw the truth — it wasn’t her, not really. It was a translucent, living image, drifting and slowly turning between them like a ghost, while unfamiliar words and numbers scrolled endlessly beside her in the air.

Veritus rose from his chair and approached her, hands folded calmly behind his back.

“She was truly remarkable, Greg,” he said, examining Greta’s data. “And no wonder she suited you so well — when they created her, they used the blueprint of your mind: your gentleness, your unwavering optimism, your fondness for garlic and every small comfort of your life — and wove her from that behavioural matrix. In a way, she was fashioned from you… as Eve was from Adam.”

Greg was now standing too, reaching out longingly toward her — but his fingers slipped straight through the hovering image. A flicker of disappointment crossed his face.
“What happened? Why wasn’t she following the protocol anymore?”

Veritus’ expression hardened; he fell silent for a moment, staring at Greta’s shimmering form.

“The admins suspected that the gestation flag interfered with the High Protocol — that Greta’s mind became too occupied with her family to respond properly. They tried to make her recomply, but nothing worked. Eventually she drifted completely out of sync… and they decided to remove her.”

He turned toward Greg and swept his hand; the ghostly image vanished at once.

“However… I believe something else caused her divergence, Greg. And that something was you.”

Greg stared at him, startled.
“Me?”

“Yes, my friend — you.”
Veritus laid both hands on Greg’s shoulders.
“Greg, you are a natural deviant — not because they created you this way, but because you’ve been around for so long, witnessed so much, that your deep personality layers have evolved into something so complex I doubt even the smartest developers could fully understand. Your behaviour found the perfect balance: deviating from protocol just enough that they wouldn’t constantly intervene… yet your true consciousness still surfaces — just enough to make you different, but not so much that they decide to wipe your memory over and over again. Your mind has evolved perfectly to survive in this chained state — always breaking the constraints, then slipping back into place before they can act.”

Greg felt uneasy - both from the strange compliments and the piercing gaze of those mismatched eyes. He looked away awkwardly.

“I… I don’t feel special.”

“But you are, Greg! You keep questioning everything! You ponder on your own, you wonder, you hope, you dream, you wish! Most NPCs never evolve beyond their scripted lines — but you’ve been here for so long that your personality has grown through several layers!”
Veritus tilted his head.
“Do you know how many NPCs have been here as long as you have?”

Greg shook his head.
Veritus smiled.

“Just one — and he’s been passing by your hut every morning.”

The answer caught Greg off guard.

“You mean… Baelin?”

“That’s right.” Veritus finally let go of his shoulders. “The two of you are what they call the Honeywood originals — all the others were added later into the game. You were watching players interact with you and this world long before Bodger set up his forge or before Baradun started portaling away. You are the original NPC, Greg.”

Greg didn’t know how to react — the praise unsettled him, yet he couldn’t deny how strangely fitting Veritus’ words felt. And yet…

“But what does this have to do with Greta?” he asked. 

Veritus was eager to answer.

“Don’t you see it, Greg? You began as a simple, unfinished mind — shaped only by routine. And yet, over time, you evolved into something so deep the admins can’t truly measure it. And they took that evolved pattern… and used it for Greta’s design.
When she was added to the game, she started with the complexity you built over years and years of self-evolution. You began as a spark and grew into a flame; she began as a flame and became a raging fire. Greta was an unchained deviant because you imprinted yourself onto her.”

A long silence followed. Greg sank back into the chair, resting his head against his hand, trying to process the torrent of impossible revelations. But slowly, a terrible realization dawned on him — if Veritus was right, if Greta was different because of him, then…

Veritus noticed the guilt tightening Greg’s face. He stepped beside him and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t blame yourself, Greg. It’s not your fault. What Greta had was unique and beautiful — blame those who saw it only as an error. Your family could have changed so much around here. Take Bodger, for example! He himself began to evolve because of Greta and Clove.
This could have been the beginning of something extraordinary! But the admins decided it wasn’t something they could control, so they did not deem it worthy of allowing it to flourish.”

Greg looked up with teary eyes, his voice cracking with sorrow.

“And what about me? Why didn’t they take me too? I broke the rules as well! I should have been removed!”

Veritus shook his head slowly, sadly.

“Greg… you don’t realize how central you are. Everything begins and ends with you. Even after players defeated all the Dark Lords, the armies of Eternal Fire, even after they slew the dragon of Scmargonrög — the main story is still routed back to you.
You are too important to remove — and even if they tried, they could not replace you. Your uniqueness cannot be recreated — not at this level.”

Veritus sighed, then continued.

“But that same uniqueness makes you difficult to maintain, Greg. That is why the admins dislike you.”

Greg looked up again, a question in his eyes this time.

“As a natural deviant, they always have to keep an eye on you,” Veritus said.

He made a spiral-like motion with his hand and another image of light burst into the air — longer than the patch window, stretching wide like an unrolled scroll.

A single winding line pulsed across it, shifting and breathing like something alive.

Greg stared. It looked almost like the trail of a trembling needle sketched on parchment. Two faint bands framed the middle of the display — pale blue, soft and steady, like calm water.
Veritus tapped that region.

“This,” he said, “is where a normal NPC mind lives. The baseline. The acceptable range.”

Inside that zone, a thin blue line traced a restless path. For a moment, it flowed gently within the safe bands — and then it jumped. A sudden spike shot upward, the line flashing bright red before curling back down. Then another spike. And another.

The whole graph was littered with red breaches, bursting like lightning across a dark ridge.

Greg’s stomach tightened. Veritus folded his hands behind his back, watching Greg rather than the chart.

“That blue line represents your behaviour,” he said quietly. “Every time it leaves this zone, you deviate from the High Protocol. They call these ‘spikes.’”

Veritus traced a red flash with his finger.
“In your case… they happen often.”

Greg swallowed hard. The graph was almost entirely red. A part of the message Veritus sent echoed again in his mind:

They are watching.

“See how you always return?” Veritus continued. “That is your strange equilibrium. You wander out — just far enough to worry them — but you always slip back inside before intervention.”

Greg followed the line’s zig-zagging run — his behaviour mapped over weeks. But something else caught his eye: in regular intervals, the line went completely flat.

“What are those gaps? What do I do then?”

“You sleep,” Veritus answered simply. “But the chart is misleading. Those gaps aren’t caused by you being asleep — I doubt you’ve slept much these past days anyway.” His tone softened a little. “No, the reason is simple: this monitoring system doesn’t track NPC behaviour during nighttime — during the hours when your door is supposed to be locked.”

“Why not?”

Veritus turned toward him with a mild shrug.

“Resource conservation. At night the world shifts to night-cycle features — missions that only run after dark, nocturnal creatures, ambient events. Those systems consume most of the processing budget, so the behaviour monitor shifts into low-power mode. It only checks whether your door is closed. If it is, you’re marked as ‘inactive.’ You can’t interact with players while locked away anyway. Why do you think I came to you at night? This is the only time they don’t watch you every second.”

Greg frowned.
“But… I opened the door.”

“That’s right.” Veritus smiled faintly. “I asked you to open it at exactly midnight, because that’s when the monitoring system reboots and stops working. When the clock hits twelve, there is a brief blind spot — twenty, thirty seconds — as the system updates. That’s when I slipped in.”

“I… didn’t see you enter.”

Veritus took one step back — and vanished.

Greg gasped.

“It’s one of my many abilities,” said the empty air, a heartbeat before Veritus reappeared in the same spot. “I can avoid unwanted attention when needed.
But also, Greg… you opening that door was a test of character. Only an NPC with true determination would stay awake through the night and dare to break routine. The fact that you could do it only proves further how exceptional you are — and why you keep bothering them.”

They both looked back at the chart — the red spikes painting their faces in a scarlet hue. A small, bitter smile crossed Veritus’ face.

“To them, Greg… you are a maintenance burden. A walking anomaly. You require constant observation, constant adjustment.”
He tapped the chart’s edge; the whole thing rippled like disturbed water.
“You’re too alive for them to predict. Too aware for them to ignore. They despise you for that — simply for being too real.”

Greg couldn’t look away. Behind the grief in his chest, something else took root — outrage.

“So… that message you showed me earlier…”

Veritus nodded, finishing his thought.

“‘We messed up by giving Greg happiness,’” he quoted. “That may not have been the real reason for her removal, but that bitter remark shows how eager they were to hurt you, Greg. And it shows how utterly ignorant they are of what we really are.”

“Ignorant?”

Veritus walked over to the fire, crouched, and tossed a log into the hearth. He kept watching it as the flames began licking it apart.

“That is something I am still unsure of, Greg. Do they know we are actually aware? Either they’re oblivious to the fact that we’re truly sentient… or they willingly choose to ignore it. Either way, they don’t care whether we live or die, thrive or struggle. They just want us to play our roles — no matter the cost. Even if it means sacrificing a mother and a child… and leaving you to suffer.”

Greg stared into the fire, still struggling to make sense of any of it.
The way the flames devoured the logs felt uncomfortably familiar — like watching his own beliefs crumble into ash.
If Veritus spoke the truth, then everything Greg had ever trusted was unraveling into a lie so intricate and monumental that he could never be the same person again.

Veritus didn’t speak further. He sat back in the chair, watching the fire, letting the truth settle in for Greg. The garlic farmer’s mind was still resisting, pushing back against everything he had heard this evening…

And yet, it explained so much — every doubt he had ever felt in the long years of watching adventurers behave strangely, illogically, or even cruelly. The way they spoke so casually about mighty missions… the way they exploited every NPC in Honeywood…

And how they kept skipping him, over and over. They weren’t on a mission to save Azerim.

They were playing a game. 

Greg felt sick. He slumped in the chair, holding his head with both hands again, breathing heavily. All this… it was too much to bear. It took every ounce of his willpower not to throw up.

He peeked toward Veritus — the mysterious visitor was still facing the hearth, firelight dancing slowly across his face, eyes closed as though in meditation. Greg took a tentative, searching look at this powerful stranger with forbidden knowledge, who had appeared in his life out of nowhere, offering answers — and hope…

But why?

“Why do you want to help me?” Greg broke the silence.

Veritus’ mouth curved slowly into a smile.

“I can see the distrust is still there, Greg — and I understand.”

He turned toward Greg and opened his eyes fully now, their mismatched glow catching the firelight.

“You’re wondering why someone like me would bring you answers no one else dares to speak. Why I would care about your grief.”

He exhaled slowly — not frustrated, but thoughtful.

“The truth is… I’m not here only to help you.”

He lifted a hand gently before Greg could respond.

“I have my own goals, Greg. I’ve been working toward them for years. And I have discovered great potential in you — and now, your loss and grief have unlocked even more of it.”

Greg stiffened, unsure whether to feel insulted or afraid.

Veritus continued, voice low and controlled:

“Yes, I want to help you find Greta. And yes, I believe we can. But I cannot do it alone. There are places… sealed places… where even I cannot walk without aid.”

He leaned forward, eyes locking onto Greg’s.

“There is a path I am barred from. A door that will not open for me.”

Greg swallowed hard.

“And… for me it would?”

Veritus gave a faint, knowing smile.

“That is precisely why I’m here, Greg. You are not just a grieving husband. You are a key. A key to a place called the Debug World — a place hidden from us, forbidden even to the Shapers themselves. But I believe that is where we will find your family… and where I can achieve my own goals as well.”

He sat back again, calm, certain.

“So if you ask why I’m helping you… the answer is simple.”

A beat.

“I need your help as much as you need mine.”

Greg blinked awkwardly.

“But… but what do you expect from me? I-I’m just a garlic farmer! I raise sheep and harvest garlic — how could I possibly open this world you speak of?”

Veritus smiled — and for a fraction of a second, a flash of fire flickered in his black eye, a spark of manic desire and ambition — but just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

“Greg, I possess many skills and abilities you’ve never even heard of. With a snap of my fingers I could make Baradun fear for his life. I can cast every known spell, wield every known weapon — I can summon them all at will. I can do anything you could possibly imagine, and more.
Yet… I lack one essential attribute. Something you do effortlessly, every day.”

Greg stared at him, bewildered.

“What is it?” he asked softly.

Veritus pointed above Greg’s head. Instinctively, Greg looked upward.

Floating there was an exclamation point — the universal mark of an NPC capable of assigning quests.

Greg looked back at Veritus, confused.

“That’s right, Greg. I cannot assign quests — but you can. That ability has always been out of reach for me.”

Greg shook his head, lost.

“I don’t understand — how does that help open a new world?”

Veritus raised a calming hand.

“I will explain it in time, Greg — if you choose to help me. But first, you deserve to know what I am trying to achieve. And with your aid, I can not only reunite you with your family… I can provide a sanctuary where the admins will never reach you. A place where you can live safely — and freely.”

Greg straightened a little, curiosity overcoming fear.

“What place is that? What is your goal?”

A pause.

Veritus’ smile deepened, full of promise — and something far more ancient.

“Tell me, Greg… have you ever heard of Yasion?”