Five years passed.
For the Blackwood, it was a blink. For the world of men, it was an era.
Elias no longer lived in a cabin. He resided in what the hushed whispers of Sunstone's hunters called "Blackwood Spire." It was not a tower of stone, but a masterfully engineered compound, built into the side of the high bluff overlooking the stream. It was a fortress of dark, iron-rich wood, reinforced with his own crude but effective metallurgy, and interwoven with the living rock of the cliff face. Green-glowing runes, drawn from the deepest lore of his Reaper of Souls proficiency, were carved into the walls, wards that pulsed with a silent, menacing energy, turning aside lesser spirits and sickening any mortals who drew too near with malign intent.
At fifty-five cycles a season, he was now forty-five years old. The soft intellectual from the sterile apartment was a distant memory, an ancestor's ghost. Elias was now hard, lean, and weathered, his face a mask of cold authority, his black eyes holding the depth of the ancient forest itself. He had not seen his own reflection in years and would not have recognized the man he'd become.
His power had settled, maturing from a torrent into a vast, deep reservoir. He no longer needed four skeletal prowlers; he commanded one, a monstrosity he called his Huscarl. It was a golem of fused bone, black iron, and petrified wood, animated by a sliver of a powerful elemental spirit he had "negotiated" with. It was his sentinel, his champion, his heavy laborer, an extension of his will as potent as a small army. His Fortress Mind allowed him to see through his Corvid-Mind, commune with his Huscarl, and feel the pulse of the forest simultaneously, a constant stream of data that he processed with serene efficiency. He was no longer a player in the game; he was becoming part of the game's engine.
Peace, of a strange and grim sort, had settled over his domain. The goblin tribes, after he had systematically dismantled their leadership from afar, now paid him a tribute of scavenged metal and rare herbs, leaving it at a marked stone and fleeing before his Huscarl came to collect. The creatures of the wood knew to give his Spire a wide berth.
His one, unbreakable link to the world he protected was the Soul Anchor.
The connection to Elara was a constant, thrumming whisper at the back of his consciousness. It was his only source of true human contact. He felt the echo of her joys—a good harvest, a new song learned—and the pang of her sorrows—a disagreement with a friend, a lonely evening. He experienced life as a vicarious heartbeat, a shared soul he guarded with the ferocity of a dragon hoarding its last piece of gold. He had performed the Soul Scry only once in five years, just to see her, and had immediately regretted the intrusion. He respected her privacy, relying on the Anchor's ambient data feed.
Through his distant observations, he knew his grand deception had worked. Elara, now a clever and thoughtful young woman of twelve, was not an outcast. She was the "Warden-Touched." She was treated with a unique mixture of reverence and wary distance. The other children saw her as someone set apart, someone who had bartered with the forest's dark god and returned. Her mother was healthy, and the village of Sunstone, secure in their "bargain" with their grim protector, had prospered. Their hunting parties went unmolested. Their fields were fertile. Their peace was bought with offerings left at the forest's edge and a faith built on appeasement.
Elara herself carried his protection like a strange mantle. She was quiet, observant, and often looked to the dark line of the trees as if searching for a familiar face. The Anchor, he theorized, gave her a subconscious affinity for his domain, a faint echo of his own Apex Dweller senses. She was never startled by the snap of a twig, and the hunters said she could find her way through the thickest parts of the wood as if following an invisible path.
This was the state of his kingdom. A quiet, cold, efficient peace.
And then, a new piece was placed on the board.
A message from the Eyes of the Warden flickered through his mind. A man had arrived at the gates of Sunstone. Not a soldier. Not a tribal. He was a single man, dressed in fine but practical woolen clothes, leading a mule laden with chests. The ravens reported the scent of strange spices, ink, and money. He was a merchant.
Elias focused his will, his Wraith Walk taking him instantly from his Spire to the gates of the village. He hovered, an invisible specter, listening.
The merchant, a man with a merchant's easy smile and keen, calculating eyes who called himself Silas Marwood, was making a proposal to Jorn, the aging chieftain.
"…and the Iron Hegemony is not without mercy," Silas was saying, his voice smooth as polished stone. "We recognize your independence. We seek only trade. Your remarkable wood, your durable hides, the unique resilience of your people. In exchange, we offer steel tools. Woven cloth. Salt. Medicine. A better life."
Jorn was suspicious. "We have a protector. We need no help from iron lords."
Silas's smile did not falter. "Ah yes, the 'Warden'. A powerful spirit, I am sure. But can a spirit till a field with a steel plough? Can it weave a warm blanket for a child in winter? I offer prosperity, chieftain. Not conquest. Simply a trade agreement. A charter that ties Sunstone's fortune to the Hegemony's wealth. We will even build a permanent trading post, managed by myself, to facilitate this new era of friendship."
Elias watched, his mind a whirlwind of cold fury. This was a thousand times more dangerous than Captain Borin's swords and crossbows. Borin offered a swift death. Silas offered a slow one. He offered dependence. He offered to replace their culture of self-reliance with one of consumerism. He would hook them on Hegemony goods until they could not live without them, and once they were economically chained, political subjugation would be a mere formality. He was not attacking their bodies; he was poisoning their soul.
And he was using the Warden's limitations as his primary weapon. Can a spirit till a field?
Worse, through the Soul Anchor, Elias felt a flicker of interest from Elara, who was watching from a distance. The idea of new medicines, of books, of a world beyond the woods—it was a natural curiosity, a dangerous one.
This was an invasion Elias could not repel with skeletal monsters. He couldn't kill a trade agreement with a spear. To reveal himself and order them to refuse would be to act the tyrant, shattering the fragile protector-narrative he had so carefully built. He would become the monster they had first feared.
He retreated to his spire, the gears of his Fortress Mind grinding. He was the Ashen King, the remote ruler. But this new threat wasn't on a battlefield he could reach with an avatar. It was in the hearts and minds of the people he was sworn to protect.
The game had changed. And he had no idea how to make his next move.