The city gave way to starlit woods. Pale leaves glowed against the endless night, spectral light filtering through branches. Among the trees, Ancestral Followers stirred—antlered helms gleaming, bows raised, spears braced. Some circled their bonfires, chanting to unseen stars. Others crept between the roots, watching.
The Tarnished burst through them without pause. Arrows hissed past, spears thrust from the dark, but he smashed through those that barred his way, bodies crumpling beneath the hammer's weight. The rest he ignored, his path never faltering. Their horns sounded, echoing through the woods, but he was already gone.
At last, the forest opened into a high clearing. A Site of Grace shimmered in the grass, its calm golden light untouched by ruin. He touched it, the warmth of its blessing seeping into him. From the ledge beyond, the view stretched across the city's depths.
From the Ancestral Woods, the Tarnished descended carefully across the broken rooftops and slanted walkways, starlight gleaming faintly off ruined tiles. The air deepened with a hush—no wind, no birds, only the shimmer of Nokron's eternal night.
At the base of the descent, the long stone street stretched ahead, lit by pale pools scattered across the cracks of the pavement. From those pools, the Silver Tears stirred.
They were not men, nor beasts—only blobs of glimmering quicksilver, their forms swelling and collapsing with a wet slosh. Some were no larger than a hound, rolling after him in wobbling hops. Others rose to great rounded masses, tall as walls, their bulk sagging as they lurched forward. They made no cries, no voices—only the sound of wet collapse when his hammer struck.
The Giant-Crusher came down, and one small blob burst into droplets that sizzled against the stone. Another tried to roll at him with its whole bulk, but he caught it on a backswing, the colossal hammer splattering it flat across the cobbles. Its liquid body twitched, quivered, then stilled, leaving only runes flowing into him as it faded.
Down the street he pressed, crushing through one after another. A massive blob dropped from a broken ledge above, its weight collapsing onto him like a falling boulder. He staggered, then drove the hammer up in a brutal arc, splitting it into halves that wriggled and dissolved.
At last, the street opened into the ruin beneath the great withered Finger. There, the collapsed hall loomed, its roof broken open to the starlight. Within, silence waited.
At the far end, a lone chest rested before the altar, untouched by time.
The Tarnished crossed the hall, each step echoing against bare stone. He knelt and pressed the lid open.
Inside, resting as though in slumber, lay the Finger-Slayer Blade. Its steel was blackened, thin yet unyielding, as if the very notion of cutting flesh were beneath it. The metal seemed to absorb the faint starlight of the chamber, drinking it until it reflected nothing.
He took it in hand, holding the absolute weight of a relic meant to slay the Fingers themselves.
The chest clicked shut, the sound echoing faintly against the hollow stone walls of the ruined hall. The Finger-Slayer Blade was cold in his grip, heavy though it seemed almost weightless in form.
He turned to leave, and just beyond the threshold of the ruin, the air shimmered. A faint distortion, like heat rising from a summer road, pulsed in the night air. The Tarnished stepped closer, and the shimmer revealed a waygate, its glow soft yet insistent.
Without hesitation, he reached forward.
The world folded.
Starlight blurred into nothing, then reformed around him—cool grass beneath his feet, the familiar broken ledges and twisted roots of the Ancestral Woods. The nearby grace flickered, its flame steady as if welcoming him back.
Behind him, the shimmer of the waygate faded, vanishing into the air as if it had never been. The path forward lay clear now: back to Ranni, and the judgment of whether he had earned a place—however brief—on her chosen path.
—
The Tarnished ascended through the quiet of Caria Manor once more, its halls still littered with spectral fragments fading into nothing as he passed. Beyond lay the rolling mists of the Three Sisters, and at their heart, Ranni's Rise.
The tower stood pale against the endless night sky, the rune-lit windows watching like still, unblinking eyes. Inside, the chamber was just as he had left it: cold stone floors, star-glow spilling through the open roof, the lone chair raised upon its dais.
Ranni sat within it, her porcelain-doll body still and poised, the faint curl of her hat shadowing her ghostly visage. She turned her head as the Tarnished entered, her eyes glowing faint blue in the half-dark.
"You have returned." Her voice was even, a thread of thought drawn across silence. "And with you, the relic most coveted by the Fingers… the blade wrought to sunder them."
The Tarnished stepped forward and laid the Finger-Slayer Blade before her, its dark metal catching no reflection, no gleam.
For a time she regarded it without speech. Then, slowly, her hand lifted, resting with a strange gentleness upon its edge.
"For long have I sought this. Yet none of my vassals could wrest it free of Nokron. Only you, fate-guided stranger, bore the strength and will to claim it." She leaned back slightly, her gaze settling upon him, cold but not without weight. "For this service, you have my thanks. You have done what even my own knights could not."
She paused, and for the first time, her tone shifted—faintly less distant, though still aloof.
"Know, however, that trust is not given in fullness with but one act. You have set foot upon my path, and I would see how far you will tread it. Yet… the first stone has been laid."
Her doll's lips barely moved as her eyes lowered again to the blade.
"With this, the Fingers' meddling may at last be cut away. And my destiny may proceed unbound."
The silence stretched. She did not dismiss him outright this time. Instead, her gaze lingered, thoughtful—measuring him.
Ranni's pale fingers lingered a moment longer on the Finger-Slayer Blade, then withdrew.
"Your service is marked. But my path must now turn deeper into shadow." Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, the faintest flicker of something almost human within her eyes. "You have played your part, Tarnished. I would walk the next road alone."
The chamber fell still. Her form flickered faintly, as though the very light recoiled from her, and then she was gone—her body vanishing into thin mist. The great chair stood empty, and the air was cold as before.
The Tarnished remained a moment, his hammer resting across his shoulder. No summons, no dismissal—only silence. He bowed his head once, then turned.
Outside, the mists of the Three Sisters hung low, and with them a change: the once-sealed tower, its doors bound by magic, now stood open. Its high windows flickered faintly with pale glow, as though a new current had been awakened within.
Inside, the rise was bare, its stone walls unadorned save for one thing: at its center, a waygate shimmered. The sigil pulsed with quiet energy, runes etched in pale blue light spiraling across its frame.
The Tarnished stepped before it. For a moment, the air smelled faintly of stagnant water and stone long-buried.
Without hesitation, he placed his hand upon the glow.
The world warped.
Light shattered into fragments, then fell away into darkness. He felt the chill of subterranean air rush against his skin, the whisper of unseen currents brushing past. When his vision cleared, the cavern stretched vast around him: stone cliffs descending into endless black waters, ghostly glimmers of pale blue fireflies drifting in the gloom.
The Ainsel River Main. And not far from where he had appeared, a tiny doll of Ranni herself.
The Tarnished rested at the grace by the riverbank, the cavern roof stretching above like a false sky of glimmering stone. He drew the small doll from his satchel and placed it on the stone beside him.
At first, silence. Only the eternal sound of rushing water.
Then, her voice—clear, low, each word weighted, as though she measured them before giving them shape.
"…So. Thou art here after all. Not by my summons, yet ever by fate's design."
The Tarnished said nothing, his gaze fixed on the unmoving doll.
"Know this—these depths conceal more than stone and stagnant water. My enemies reach even here, their claws at my very spirit. One among them hunts me… a shadow, hateful, relentless. Bound to my curse, it moveth where I cannot."
Her words lingered, a pause long enough to let the current's hiss fill the chamber before she spoke again.
"Strike it down. Without hesitation, without mercy. Think not on what it is, nor whom it serveth. Only that its death is required."
The flame of the grace sputtered, throwing long flickers across the cavern wall, as if her voice disturbed even the still air around him.
"Do this, and I may continue my course unshackled. Fail, and thou wilt not see me again."
The whisper faded, leaving the doll lifeless once more, its porcelain eyes closed in silence.
The Tarnished picked it up, tucked it into his satchel, and rose. With the Giant-Crusher balanced heavy upon his shoulder, he turned into the winding dark of Ainsel River, where the unseen shadow stirred.
The Tarnished moved down the sloping stone passages, the Giant-Crusher dragging lines of dust and grit when its head brushed the ground. The sound of the river swelled around him, echoing through the endless cavern like the pulse of some hidden giant.
The first chamber opened wide—a hollow cave where the air was thick with skittering. Ants, colossal and pale, crawled across the stone. Their chitter carried in the stillness, mandibles clicking in patterns that rang like iron against bone. A cluster moved to block his way, their bulbous eyes glimmering faintly in the dark.
The Tarnished surged forward. One swing of the hammer shattered the first ant outright, its shell splintering like brittle wood. Limbs scattered, ichor steaming on the stone. Another lunged, mandibles snapping—but a backswing caught it mid-body, slamming it into the wall until it burst. The others recoiled, but his advance did not slow. With each kill, golden motes rose from the corpses, spiraling into him as runes filled his being.
He pressed onward through the tunnels, where the stone narrowed and widened again into a chamber of ancient ruins drowned in earth. Here the ants swarmed thicker, clinging to walls and ceiling, their bodies weaving a canopy of shifting chitin. A heavier one stirred in the dark—its bloated abdomen trailing, a wingless queen-like beast, larger than the rest. It hissed, the air vibrating with the sound.
The Tarnished met its charge head-on. One hammer swing, a brutal arc, and the creature cracked open against the stone floor. Its bulk writhed, screeched, then fell still, its death shaking dust from the cavern ceiling.
Beyond the ant nest, silence returned, save for the sound of his own steady footfalls. He emerged into an area where the river narrowed, cutting between ancient carved stone. Claymen rose here, half-buried in the silt, their hollow eyes fixed on him. They stirred with agonizing slowness, staffs lifting as glintstone sparks glimmered.
The Tarnished gave them no chance. He charged, hammer smashing through one, its body collapsing like wet earth. Another tried to conjure a sluggish spell—but he crushed it into the riverbank, mud and clay spraying wide. They fell one by one, their rune-light drifting into him before their forms slumped back into the muck.
The cavern grew darker still, lit only by faint blue fungi clinging to the walls. In the distance, faint whispers stirred—a presence, not seen, but felt. The air pressed closer to his skin, heavy and cold.
At last, the path tightened into a long, narrow stretch of stone ruins, twisting and falling deeper into the earth. The grace-flames that dotted the passage guided him forward, their shimmer bending unnaturally, as if recoiling from what lurked ahead.
It was here, in the dark of the narrow way, that the air shifted. Heavy, suffocating. The silence grew absolute.
And then it came.
From the shadows ahead, a figure stepped forth—humanoid, tall, cloaked in black that swallowed the cavern light. Its eyes burned faint crimson, fixed wholly on him. The Baleful Shadow. Its presence was suffocating, its steps deliberate, the sound of steel dragging faintly against stone.
The Tarnished gripped the Giant-Crusher in both hands. Ranni's words lingered sharp in his mind:
Strike it down. Without hesitation. Without mercy.
The Baleful Shadow emerged from the dark like a living curse, its blade gleaming black, its eyes twin embers of malice. It filled the cavern with a suffocating weight, a pressure that seemed to choke the very air from the Tarnished's lungs.
Yet he did not yield.
With a slow exhale, he planted his feet, the earth beneath him fracturing as if it too bent to his will. The Giant-Crusher rested on his shoulder, a slab of iron so heavy it could topple fortresses—yet in his grip, it was a weapon of grace. His chest kindled with fire, that white, steady flame born not of grace, not of gods, but of the enduring humanity within him. It spilled across his arms, encasing the hammerhead in light so pure it seemed carved from starlight.
The Shadow lunged. Its blade came screaming down in a blur, black steel cutting through the cavern like a tear in reality itself. The Tarnished moved to meet it, his hammer crashing upward with the sound of an avalanche. The collision shook the stone around them; cracks spiderwebbed through the floor, rubble crashing from the ceiling.
The white flame exploded at the point of contact, flooding the cavern with brilliance. The Shadow reeled, cloak ignited, its formless body twitching as though the light itself scoured it raw.
The Tarnished pressed forward. He swung the Giant-Crusher in a wide arc, the weapon's head smashing through the wall of the cavern, pulverizing stone to dust as it swept back into the Shadow. The impact shattered it from its feet, the purity of the flame surging over its body, peeling away the layers of darkness clinging to its form.
It screamed, a sound twisted with fury and despair, and rose again with impossible speed. Its blade slashed for his throat—but he met it with brute force, his free hand seizing the weapon mid-swing. Blackened steel sparked in his grasp, his palm burning, but the white fire bled from his hand into the blade, crawling up its length like veins of lightning. The steel cracked, splitting under the strain.
With a roar, he wrenched the weapon aside and brought the Giant-Crusher down in a two-handed arc. The hammer struck the Shadow with the fury of a mountain falling, the cavern floor buckling, stone erupting outward in a shockwave of white fire.
The Baleful Shadow writhed in the crater, its form unraveling, smoke pouring from its cloak as the purifying flame consumed it. Its eyes flickered once more in defiance—then went out, snuffed like candles in the wind.
Silence followed. Only the faint hiss of fire fading back into ember, and the slow trickle of dust from the ceiling. The Tarnished stood tall amid the ruin, chest heaving, the Giant-Crusher planted in the stone like a monument. The white flame dimmed, sinking back into him, but its purity remained, a steady ember at the core of his being.
Runes drifted upward, motes of gold absorbed into his form. He closed his eyes for a moment, grounding himself, and when he opened them again, the doll at his side stirred.
"…So. It is done," came the voice, faint and measured.
The voice rang clear this time, not muffled or faint, but steady—measured, as though she had chosen at last to speak plainly.
"That wretch of shadow was bound to me, a curse I could not strike myself. Hadst thou faltered, my journey would have ended here, in silence and stillness."
Her words lingered, soft but edged.
"Yet… here I remain. By thy hand. I thank thee."
The Tarnished bent, lifting the doll gently into his palm. Its painted eyes seemed closed in slumber, yet her voice carried through it with all the weight of her presence.
"Think not that I offer thee praise. Thou hast merely cleared what must be cleared. The hand of fate moveth onward, and I with it."
A pause. The current of the underground river whispered faintly through the cavern, as though filling the silence she left.
"Go on. The path before thee yet plunges deeper, and its end draweth near. Where stars fall and night itself lingers, we shall meet again."
The doll fell quiet, lifeless once more.