From the perspective of Alessio Leone
The alleys of Eldenwall narrowed more and more, as if the city itself wanted to choke those who dared to cross them. Torchlight barely reached the corners, revealing only fragments of misery: rotting planks passing for walls, rooftops patched with soaked rags, makeshift doors creaking under the night wind. The stench was worse still—a sour mix of sewage, half-burned smoke, and food scraps fermenting on the ground.
Alessio walked in silence, his steady steps clashing with the groaning boards beneath his feet. The deeper he went, the clearer the decay became. Houses weren't houses anymore: twisted shacks, piles of wood thrown together without reason, cracks where hungry eyes watched in silence. Children, thin as skeletons, played with animal bones, while hollow-eyed adults hid in corners, avoiding the man who passed with shield and axe.
Until finally, he stopped before something that wasn't even a building.
A pile of trash.
Heaps of discarded scraps: torn sacks reeking of rot, splintered furniture, twisted iron, carcasses tossed at random. The stench rose like a toxic fog. But Alessio knew exactly where he was. In his past life, he remembered this forgotten spot—and the secret buried beneath the filth.
Without hesitation, he knelt and began digging through the heap with his left arm, his shield still strapped to the other like an extension of his body. Boards creaked, sacks split apart, cockroaches and rats scattered in every direction. And then, beneath the mountain of decay, a figure emerged.
A man.
His body was curled up, as if the world had thrown him here and forgotten him. His skin was pale, hair matted with sweat and dirt, clothes nothing but rags. He was breathing, but so faintly that anyone else might have mistaken him for a corpse.
Alessio wasted no time. He pulled the limp body upright and propped it against a damp stone wall. Then he leaned in and gave the man a few firm pats on the cheek.
"Hey… wake up."
The first response was a low groan, followed by a shallow breath. Slowly, the man opened his eyes, like someone returning from an endless nightmare. Dilated pupils, lost gaze. But then suddenly, that gaze flared—not with clarity, but with pure desperation.
Before Alessio could say a word, the man lunged at him like a cornered animal.
The attack was instinctive, but weak. Alessio restrained him with ease, holding his arms as if stopping the wind itself.
"Let me go! Let me go, damn you!" The man's voice was hoarse, cracked with despair.
"Calm yourself, sir," Alessio replied, his tone firm but controlled. "I found you passed out in the trash. I only woke you."
The man panted, his frail body trembling against its own weakness. For a moment, his eyes still burned with fear. But then, as he focused on Alessio's face, it seemed to dawn on him that this wasn't an enemy.
The desperation didn't vanish—it merely shifted direction.
"My daughters… my daughters…" His voice broke, laden with panic. "They took them!"
He tried to stand, but his legs gave out beneath him. Alessio had to catch him before he collapsed again.
"Who took your daughters, good sir?" Alessio asked, holding him steady by the shoulders.
The man turned toward him. And for the first time, he looked not at a stranger, but at someone he could beg.
"You must save them!" he cried, nearly choking on his own words. "Perhaps only you can… please! I swear I'll reward you! It was them… the Sewer Rats… the local gang… they took them! You must save them!"
The despair in his voice wasn't a plea—it was the last thread of his hope.
Alessio, however, didn't answer.
Because at that very instant, a translucent panel appeared before his eyes.
[Unique Hidden Quest]
Do you wish to accept it?
[Yes]
[No]
No description. No difficulty rating. No listed reward. Only the raw choice, just as it always appeared in The Awakening of the Dark Tower.
Others would hesitate. Others would weigh the risks.
But Alessio was not "others."
Without the slightest doubt, his hand moved forward and pressed Yes.
The panel faded in silence, as if it had never been there. Yet the echo of its words remained etched in Alessio's mind:
[Unique Hidden Quest accepted].
He drew a slow breath, keeping his face impassive. Outwardly, just a faint nod. Inwardly, a fire burned.
This quest.
In his past life, it hadn't even been discovered until nearly a year after the game's release. A renowned player, already level 30, had been the one to stumble upon the old man abandoned in the trash. And finding him wasn't enough: intoxicated by glory, the man detailed every step on the official forum.
"A unique quest!" he boasted. "No one but me can experience it. I rescued the beggar's daughters, faced the Sewer Rats, survived twenty level-10 enemies striking in perfect sync. It was the hardest thing I've ever done—and the most glorious."
The post spread like wildfire. Players envied him, guilds theorized, but all knew the truth: no one else would ever repeat the feat. Unique quests were decrees, not communal blessings.
And yet here Alessio stood.
Level 1.
Facing the same beggar.
Hearing the same plea.
The contrast was almost absurd. The man from before had been a seasoned veteran. Alessio now had nothing but a rusty axe, a cracked shield, and raw attributes.
And still, his steps did not falter.
The old man, blind to the weight of what was unfolding, clutched Alessio's arm with tear-filled eyes.
"You… you'll save them?"
Alessio simply pressed his shoulder in reassurance, just enough to steady his hope.
"I will."
He said no more. He revealed nothing. The man didn't need to know that the youth before him already knew every detail of the future—including the outcome of this quest.
Alessio turned and walked on.
The slums' alleys grew narrower, like the intestines of a rotting beast. The dirt road crumbled beneath each step, littered with refuse and animal bones. The air was thick with dampness, the stench of mold and stagnant water, heralding what lay ahead.
For the Sewer Rats' base was not on the surface.
It was underground.
Alessio remembered clearly: a trapdoor hidden among crumbling shacks, shielded only by a slab of wood almost invisible in the dark. To a newcomer, it would look like scenery, a meaningless detail. But to him, every step was déjà vu.
His amber eyes hardened as he walked, his mind cold and calculating, like a lawyer preparing for trial.
— Twenty enemies. None below level 10.
— Coordinated strikes. The gang didn't throw themselves into chaos; they hunted like wolves.
— Traps in the sewers. Hooks, chains, improvised poisons.
The player who had first uncovered this quest had nearly died, even thirty levels higher. And in the end, he admitted he had only succeeded thanks to the indirect aid of an entire guild that lent him a full set of fresh equipment.
Some might ask: if the quest was so difficult, why not call for allies?
The Tower wasn't so simple.
If the quest was meant for a party, it had to be started with everyone present. If it was solo, it could only be taken alone. Of course, some tried to drag help in later—but that came at a cost. If the quest wasn't completed entirely alone, the rewards were drastically reduced, and helpers gained nothing at all.
In the end, the Tower was demanding—but fair.
Of course, at this moment, no one but Alessio even knew of such mechanics. The Tower still hadn't revealed its hand to the forums.
The alley widened into an open space—a jagged clearing between the shacks. At its center lay the pile of wood covering the underworld.
The entrance to the Sewer Rats' lair.
Alessio stopped before it. The cracked shield rested heavy but steady on his left arm. The rusty axe glimmered faintly beneath the moonlight.
He knew what awaited below: twenty hungry eyes, sharpened blades, iron claws, laughter echoing through the sewers. Any ordinary novice would have turned back in terror.
But he, a veteran of two lives, only smirked.
With a slow motion, he dragged the wooden cover aside and faced the darkness yawning like a beast's open maw.
And began to descend.