[POV - Simone]
Simone had been climbing too fast.
The Highlands wind cut sharp through her thin armor, rattling the buckles of her borrowed gear. She cursed under her breath and forced herself higher. Most Travelers didn't bother with the mountains this early. Too steep. Too cold. Too barren. The loot wasn't worth it.
But Simone hated the crowded deltas, the forests with their overgrown roots and pests. She wanted quiet. The Highlands promised silence. And maybe, if luck tipped her way, a vein of ore she could sell in the Grand Exchange next month. Enough to rent a better rig. Enough to keep playing.
The path narrowed to a ledge barely wide enough for her boots. She hugged the cliff, fingers scraping cold stone.
And then the world gave way.
[System]:Fall Damage! -142 HP
The stone crumbled under her weight. Simone screamed, reaching for anything, finding nothing. Darkness swallowed her. Rocks hammered her body. Pain pulsed bright across her vision. Then silence.
When she opened her eyes, she lay broken among jagged shards of stone. The air was thick, damp, alive with echoes. Her health bar blinked red.
"Damn it," she croaked. Her voice cracked against the walls.
She tried climbing. The cliff above was sheer, smooth as glass. No handholds. No way back.
The tunnels stretched endless in both directions. Simone stumbled forward, every step echoing too loud. For two days she wandered. Hunger gnawed at her. Thirst clawed her throat. Strange sounds skittered in the dark. Twice she ran from shapes that slithered just beyond her lantern's glow.
Once, she saw eyes in the black. Dozens of them. She fled, heart slamming against her ribs, and didn't stop until her legs gave out.
When she woke again, she saw light. Not her lantern's weak flame. A glow, warm and steady, pulsing like a heartbeat.
She followed it.
The cavern opened wide, glowing in blues and golds. Strange mushroom towers pulsed light. Small, mole-faced figures knelt in rows before a shrine of resin that shone like dawn caught in amber.
At the center stood a man. Human.
He held no crown, no armor, no title floating above his head. But the way the creatures bowed told her everything. He was their Lord.
She froze. Her heart hammered.
Warbles. She remembered the whispers from beta, half-forgotten data mines about a cut race. Everyone had laughed. And yet here they were.
And that man. His face was shadowed, but she saw how he lifted his hand and sunlight pierced through a crack in the roof, faint but real. The Warbles gasped and bowed deeper, calling words she didn't know.
Her hands shook. She fumbled open her stream overlay.
[Stream ON – 47 viewers]
"Guys," she whispered. "You won't believe this. I found… I don't even know. It's a shrine. And these mole people. And there's a human-"
The chat exploded.
[ShroomLord]: "Show it closer!!"
She zoomed, trembling. The figure turned, faint light catching his profile. His eyes glowed tired, haunted.
The Warbles called him Child of Propervy.
Something moved behind her.
A hiss. A scrape of claws.
She spun, too late. A beast lunged from the shadows, maw wide. Teeth tore her shoulder. Pain flared.
[System]:Fatal Blow! -332 HP
Her vision collapsed into black.
[You have died.]
The stream cut to static.
The Forum boiled hours later.
[SimoneVlogs]: "I SAW IT. Hidden race. They worship a human. Called him Child of Propervy. I have clips."
[Attached: blurry screenshots – glowing shrine, shadowed figure, mole-folk kneeling]
Replies poured in.
[Skeptik]: "LOL you just found bugged goblins."
[IronFist88]: "Why you lying, you died to a cave rat."
[SilverHuntress]: "That light in the vid… that wasn't a goblin. Look again."
[BloodPrinceTV]: "Fake. 100% scripted. If it's real, why isn't he streaming?"
[LoreSeeker]: "No. This is prophecy. Propervy is real. This is the hidden Lord."
A new phrase appeared in the thread title before it was locked for spam:
"The Ghost Lord."
[POV - Cass]
Cass sat alone in the shrine chamber. The Warbles had gone to sleep, their songs fading into the tunnels.
He scrolled through the Forum in silence.
The blurry screenshot stared back at him. His own shadowed form, frozen mid-turn, eyes hollow. The shrine burning behind him. Warbles kneeling.
He breathed slow. Too slow. His chest hurt.
"They saw," he whispered.
Not all of it. Not his name. Not his settlement's heart. But enough. Enough to seed a myth.
He shut the window. His hands trembled.
By dawn, the first episode of World's Dawn Chronicles aired.
A smooth-voiced anchor stood before a glowing map of Eryndor.
"Eight months in, the world grows. But rumors stir of a hidden Lord in the Underdark. Worshipped by creatures known only in beta code as Warbles. The so-called Ghost Lord."
The blurry clip rolled again. The host smiled like a knife.
"Fake? Or the greatest secret in the game? We'll watch closely."
Cass touched the shrine's glow, closing his eyes.
"Ghost Lord," he muttered. "If that's what they want to call me. Fine. Stay blind. Stay guessing."
But his heart pounded harder than ever.
He wasn't ready for eyes. He wasn't ready for faith.
He was only ready for survival.