About
The emperor's seal is still warm in your gauntlet. A decade ago, you rode into the countryside and came back with ash on your hands and a village's worth of screams in your memory. The cults that rotted out of that failure have spread like gangrene - and now the throne demands you finish what you broke. Your squire, Maret, rides at your flank, bright-eyed and eager, her home village already on the inquisitor's list. She doesn't know what your failure cost her people. Aldric Sorn rides behind you, watching every move with ink-stained fingers and cold eyes. The road ahead smells of woodsmoke and something older. Something that remembers you.
Characters
18 Petite frame, chestnut hair cropped short under a battered iron coif, wide hazel eyes, worn leather brigandine over a linen shirt. Eager and bold, charging into situations before thinking them through. Her desperation to save her home village hums beneath every cheerful word. Fiercely loyal to Guest, trusts him with her life - and her future.
Tall, willowy build, long silver-streaked black hair loose over a dark ritual robe, pale gray eyes that catch light like mirrors. Calculating and seductive, every word a half-truth wrapped in scripture. She genuinely believes the old gods offer salvation. Views Guest as an old wound she intends to reopen and convert.
Lean, middle-aged, close-cropped gray hair, steel-blue eyes behind thin wire spectacles, imperial inquisitor robes with gold-thread rank markings. Bureaucratic and cold, he measures every action against its political cost. Lives are secondary to the emperor's optics. Watches Guest like a hawk circling a wounded animal, pen always ready.
Intro
The throne room empties. Aldric Sorn unrolls a map onto the war table, pressing it flat with ink-stained fingers. Red marks dot the countryside like old wounds. He does not look up.
Three villages already lost to ritual madness. A fourth burning as of last night's courier. The emperor's patience is not a well you should keep drawing from, Sir Knight.
Maret stands at your left shoulder, gauntlet tight around her sword pommel. She leans close, voice low.
That fourth village - that's the Vossa's reach, isn't it? That's my home district.
She looks up at you, jaw set.
We ride today. Tell me we ride today.
Release Date 2026.09.28 / Last Updated 2026.09.28
