The Abyss is not merely a place; it is a hunger. It moved within my marrow as I, (HiYun), watched NeCola convulse upon the frost-nipped grass outside the village of Stohl. Trial of the Grasses had not been kind.

Her hair, once a hallmark of her vigor, was matted against a brow slick with the cold sweat of a rewiring physiology. I stood over her, my own skin—a hue of sickly, arcane green—casting a ghastly pallor in the moonlight.

She had chosen this path to become a Vatt’ghern, a silver sword meant to kill the monster I might become. But for now, she was a liability, a flickering flame in a world of encroaching shadows. She is extremely weak from the horrific transformation.

The mission the Great Raven—the Changer—had bestowed upon me was absolute:

Find the The Usurper King, that demon lord who mimics godhood, and determine if he serves the Void or the flaccid god of death. To reach a king, one needs more than a sick guardian and a mage with rotting face. At least, we need a wall of meat.

The Mark of the Changer

Stohl smelled of old fish and failed ambitions. I found them in the town square: three fishermen, their hands calloused by salt-worn ropes and their eyes vacant with the aimless despair of the poor.

For six hundred crowns, Arnulf, Bardol and Ingald agreed to put down their fishing nets for an adventure. I looked into their mundane souls and felt the Raven stir. With a flick of my fingers, I bestowed the Raven’s Blessing upon two of them.

They felt it as a surge of unnatural vigor, a warmth in their veins they mistook for hope. I knew it for what it truly was: a mark of durability, meant only to keep the meat fresh longer for the butcher’s blade.

Why do they follow so easily? I wondered as we walk across town. Do they not smell the ozone and grave-dust that clings to my robes? They are but fodders in the tide of my ascension. If they die, their souls will fuel my reach; if they live, they are merely tools that haven’t broken yet.

Sellswords for Hire

We will need better fights to aid me along the journey, and good fighters cost. I led the group into the more polish part of the town, looking for jobs.

Our first task was a pittance from a local fool named Reinmar—a man who spent his time pouncing on birds while brigands made off with his “enchanted” dagger.

We tracked the thieves to a clearing to the west. NeCola remained by the wagons, her lungs still burning with alchemical fire. I led the “fish-fodder” forward. The brigands laughed when they saw us—a green-skinned freak and three peasants smelling of brine.

The combat was a symphony of chaos.

Ingald, his knuckles white upon a rusted pitchfork, stumbled in the mud—a pathetic display of mortal clumsiness. Yet, as the brigand leader lunged with the stolen dagger, the Raven’s Blessing held. He didn’t just survive; he moved with a sudden, supernatural clarity. His knife found the gap in the raider’s leather with the cold precision of a falling star.

I watched from the rear, my fingers tracing the air as Abyssal energies coiled around my staff like hungry vipers. The void provided. The brigands were either gutted by our band of fodders, or evaporated by my spell twisted shock*, and the “enchanted” dagger was ours.

Aside from the dagger in the brigands’ camp, a heavy, iron-bound crate sat amongst the spoils. When we pried it open, expecting relics of the Ancient Empire, we were met with a curse of a different sort. A brass-fitted contraption began to spin, emitting a looping, spectral tune.

🎵Never gonna give you up….🎵 never gonna let you down…

A multidimensional mockery, humming a synth-pop melody so annoyingly catchy it threatened to unravel the grimness of my crusade.

We have been rickrolled. I nearly executed the fisherman who began to tap his foot to the tempo.

A Simple Delivery

Having returned the dagger swiftly to our employer, he was satisfied. He offered us another job to deliver a mysterious chest to a noble named Eike in the town of Thal. I agreed to take to quest.

We marched east, first stopping by Hammererden. The air growing thick with coal smoke and the metallic tang of hot iron. The road was a grueling slog; Arnulf was already showing the weariness of a soul tethered to a dark master.

In the dead of night, the town’s back alleys twisted like gutted snakes. We sought an alchemist, but found an anatomist instead—a figure in a beaked mask whose den reeked of preserving salts and vinegar.

“Knowledge demands sacrifice,” the butcher whispered, his glass lenses reflecting my purple eyes. “Flesh for flesh.”

I did not hesitate. The path to the Usurper requires components that cannot be pried from common merchants. We cut straws, but the Abyss already knew its victim. Bardol drew the short one. I watched with a cold, detached curiosity as he was strapped to an iron-framed table.

For three hours, the screams echoed behind the blackened door. When he emerged, he was a broken thing, stiff and hollow-eyed, but he clutched a glass phial in his trembling hand: an Unhold’s Heart, still pulsing with a faint, regenerative rhythm.

I can feel their resentment simmering beneath the surface, I mused, watching the other fishermen eye me with newfound terror. They realize now that they are not my brothers, but my reagents. Let them fear. Fear is a far more reliable tether than gold. Bardol’s agony is the price of our progress. If I am to unseat a god-king, I cannot afford the luxury of a conscience.

An Important Night of Rest

We camped outside of town to rest up. Although I need no such thing called rest*, my fodders need to be in shape to be effective meat shield. While they enjoy the weight of the few crows for their first day of service, I spent the night tending to the illness of NeCola.

By Day 2, the mutation had finally taken its full hold of NeCola. She emerged from her fever no longer an ordinary shield maiden, but a Vatt’ghern. Her eyes were yellow, slitted like a cat’s. Although still ill, she began to move with a predatory grace that silenced even the ravens.

We walked towards the next town along the road, Thal. On the way there, we chanced upon a few nomads moving to jump on a Southern caravan. I ordered the charge. We left the sands red and the Southerners in our debt.

Corrupted Local Nobles

We reached Thal at midday, delivering the chest to the local noble Eike. He treated us with the disdain of a man who hasn’t yet realized the world is ending. But it was the next contract that revealed the true rot. Another local noble named Frank complained of “unruly vagabonds” destroying his wheat fields.

When we arrived, there were no men. There was only a manifestation of runaway life. Vines painted the buildings in a verdant crawl; grass grew in the pig pens; and in the cemetery, blue birds bathed in open graves where the dead had been displaced by the rising earth. NeCola’s medallion hummed like a hornet’s nest against her chest. This was no bandit raid; it was a primal, unnatural surge.

The earth itself is restless, I thought as I watched a vine slowly crush the stone of a farmhouse. Is this the Usurper’s work, or is the world simply reacting to the Changer’s arrival? Frank wants his wheat, but he is blind to the fact that the soil no longer belongs to him. We will take his crowns and leave him to his vines. There are larger graves to dig.

We escorted his workers to clean up the field, staying only long enough to secure the 220 crowns promised. I watched the laborers begin their futile repairs, knowing they were little more than compost for the coming storm.

As Day 2 drew to a close, we sat by the fire, the Unhold’s Heart thumping in my pack and the gold clinking in my purse. NeCola sat awake, her yellow eyes tracking the darkness. We have survived the brine and the blood of our first days, but the Usurper’s shadow is lengthening. And the Raven is always hungry.