Alessio Leone's Perspective
The story behind Gloomshade Forest was no real mystery.
Any NPC in the city of Durnholde could recount it without effort to any player who showed the slightest interest.It was almost like an urban legend from the real world—repeated so many times it had become part of the city's very identity.
But Alessio knew things even those NPCs weren't aware of.
He knew the tale all too well.He knew that behind what most treated as mere background lore, there were concrete truths.
The kind hidden in plain sight.History disguised as myth.And, most importantly, rewards that most players overlooked.
Starting with the fact that the story was real.Not just flavor text.
It began more than a hundred years ago, during the war that led to the annexation of the once free city of Durnholde by the Kingdom of Thalgrande.
At the time, Durnholde was an isolated, independent city.A forgotten trade hub on larger maps, sustained by its iron mines and the occasional caravan routes passing through.It had no towering walls like Thalgrande's capitals, no professional armies trained for prolonged wars.
Its forces were small, made up mostly of farmers and craftsmen drafted in haste.Men wielding rusted spears, heirloom blades, and hardened leather armor.Compared to the kingdom's might—steel-clad knights, battle mages, and disciplined ranks of archers—Durnholde was nothing more than a mediocre obstacle.
And yet, they chose to fight.And they did so in a way no one in the region expected.
With near-suicidal ferocity, they defended their fragile walls.The city's narrow streets became improvised trenches.Women and youths carried boiling water to pour over the invaders.Elderly men raised makeshift shields, even when they knew they couldn't withstand a single charge.
Their courage drove them to the brink of annihilation.Every advance by Thalgrande came at a cost; every street taken was soaked in blood.But their fate was inevitable.
When defeat became certain, Durnholde's army did not collapse in despair.They made an unthinkable choice: retreat into the Forest of Gloomshade.
It wasn't an organized withdrawal.It was a desperate exodus.Columns of soldiers fled beneath the forest's shadows, abandoning the very city they had sworn to protect.They left behind their homes, their neighbors, their families.They delivered the defenseless populace to the crushing advance of Thalgrande's army.
From that moment, the city's history split in two:the tale of the people who stayed and were subjugated, and the tale of the army that vanished into the forest's darkness.
The conquest was sealed, but not without cost.Thalgrande's losses were colossal.Enough dead to stain the war chronicles, enough wounded to take years for the kingdom to rebuild its ranks.
And for that very reason, the king of the time—the current monarch's grandfather—decreed that victory alone wasn't enough.The rebels had to be crushed to the last root.The army of Durnholde, branded as traitors, had to be wiped out completely.
They would serve as the perfect example of what happened to those who dared defy the kingdom's power.
So thousands of Thalgrande's already weakened soldiers marched into the forest, determined to hunt down every last survivor.Knights, archers, war mages—a force capable of conquering entire cities on its own.
Unfortunately for the kingdom…
Not one of them returned.
The silence that followed was heavier than any defeat in open battle.No letters, no messengers, no remains brought back.
And thus the legend was born.The curse of Gloomshade Forest.
Since then, countless adventurers had tried to uncover what happened.The fate of Thalgrande's army.The destiny of Durnholde's lost soldiers.
All had failed.None even knew where to start.
At least, those who were lucky enough to return alive.
And that was where Alessio was different.
Because he knew.He knew exactly where to begin his search.And it wasn't inside the forest.
It was inside the city itself.
The streets of Durnholde were still crowded with players marveling at the scenery.They all carried that look of awe only newcomers wore.
Alessio didn't find it strange.In fact, he knew this situation would continue not just for days, but for months to come.
After all, in the ten years he had lived his past life inside the Black Tower, the player base had never stopped growing.
Sooner or later, the stronger ones would move on to higher-level maps or migrate to larger empires and kingdoms in search of greater opportunities.
The Black Tower was an open-world game of staggering scale.
At the moment, its explorable map was already the size of planet Earth itself.And with the updates Alessio remembered, that scale would only expand further and further.
But even with the exodus of veterans, the streets would remain full.For every veteran who left, a newcomer would take their place.
And so the streets stayed crowded.
Not that Alessio minded.
In the end, the bustling streets worked to his advantage.With so many names floating above players' heads, his presence—and the new blue-glowing title beside "Aslan"—didn't draw as much attention as it otherwise might have.
Of course.
One or two sharp-eyed players had already noticed him. But Alessio simply chose to ignore them.It was, after all, an inevitable side effect of carrying a title.
He walked on unhurriedly, ignoring the curious stares, focusing only on his destination: a small shop tucked away in an unremarkable part of the city, specialized in a single trade—herbs.
"The Verdant Remedy."
It was there, among shelves of dried herbs and glass jars filled with pungent scents, that his search would begin.
For one simple reason…
Everyone believed there were no survivors among those who entered Gloomshade Forest a hundred years ago.That every last one of them had simply vanished—both Durnholde's remnant army and Thalgrande's pursuing forces.
That was the accepted version, passed down for generations, etched into legend, and sold as truth.
What no one knew was that inside that little herb shop, one remnant of the disaster still lingered.A single survivor.
A man who, until now, had kept his mouth shut about what those thousands of soldiers had encountered in the forest.
And it was a mouth Alessio needed to open.