Chapter 2: [The Villager Checkpoint Bluff]
Liam stepped outside the hut. The air hit him like an unskippable cutscene—too crisp, too alive.
Liam (squinting):
"Okay, weather mod's on ultra."
He blinked against the morning light, rubbing his face like it might peel back the dream. But the grass was real beneath his feet. The dirt path ahead wound downhill, framed by trees that looked too detailed to be concept art. There were no artificial seams. No looping background audio.
Just the unsettling hum of a world running perfectly.
Edgewood Village.
An early-game hub in Mythos Eternal. A forgotten one. Known for soft-launching new players directly into paranoia.
He followed the path, every instinct screaming at him to turn back and wait for the UI to crash. But something deeper—colder—kept him walking.
Halfway to the gate, he passed a post. Faded paint still visible:
NO ENTRY WITHOUT SEAL
Drifters will be purged.
Below the sign, nailed through with iron spikes, hung a leather pouch. Torn. Blood-stained. Its contents were still inside.
Liam (muted):
"Inventory drop on corpse. Neat."
Two guards flanked the village entrance. These weren't flavor-NPCs. Their eyes followed his approach.
A woman in chainmail blocked his way. The man beside her—taller, halberd in hand—looked even less forgiving.
"Stop," she said. No flair. Just fact.
"Name?" the halberd guy asked.
Liam opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
No credentials. No badge. Not even a vague enough backstory.
[PASSIVE TRIGGERED: Frozen Poker Face]
He stared.
Blank.
Inside, his nerves screamed in chorus.
"You're not marked," she said. "No ink. No band. No regional tie. What are you?"
He swallowed.
Liam (flat):
"Ashen Order. Internal affairs."
The guard flinched—barely. The halberd lowered a hair. They exchanged a glance.
"They don't send their own out here," the woman said.
Liam (neutral):
"Exactly."
Let silence do the heavy lifting.
They hesitated. The air thickened. Then—
"If you're lying, we'll know soon enough. Market's to the left. Don't speak to the gravedigger."
He stepped past them, not fast. Not slow. Like he knew what came next.
Liam (internally):
"Cool. That worked. Should not have worked."
Edgewood stank of suspicion. Fences leaned. Windows stayed shuttered. Merchants whispered. Doors only opened far enough to remind you they existed.
A kid tried to hand him a doll. Quest hook.
He walked past.
Liam (recalling):
"That basement's rigged with a level 12 ghoul. Classic bait."
The town center spiraled around a dried-out fountain. No music. No atmospheric hum. Just footsteps and smoke.
That's when he saw the priest.
Old. Thin. Pale robes. Pale eyes.
Watching him like a broken asset that had loaded in wrong.
"Stranger," the man said.
Liam kept walking. Slowly turned.
"I know that silence," the priest continued. "It's not the silence of ignorance. It's the silence of weight."
Liam said nothing.
"The Ashen Order hasn't crossed these stones since the Fracture."
Liam blinked.
Liam (measured):
"And they never walked alone."
The priest tilted his head, lips parting into something like a smile.
"Ah. A handler, then. Or maybe the leash."
Liam (internally):
"What the hell does that mean?"
The priest leaned in slightly.
"May the root remember you."
That froze Liam more than the passives ever could.
The Root.
Cut content. Never in the final build. Referenced once in a dev leak about forgotten world states. No player ever saw it.
The priest walked away.
Then—
[SYSTEM UPDATE: REPUTATION FLAGGED]
[UNIDENTIFIED ENTITY: WATCHERS OF THE ROOT – INTERESTED]
Liam stared at the message until it blinked out.
Liam (flat):
"I hate being interesting."
This wasn't just a recreation.
It was evolving.
And now it had noticed him.
He wandered deeper into Edgewood, pushing past the last edge of the market where the signs thinned out and the houses leaned too far into shadow. The air here was cooler—stagnant in places, like the game hadn't bothered loading weather effects this far back.
Two old women were whispering near a stone basin, their eyes darting toward him the moment he passed. One made the sign of the fracture. The other simply turned away.
He passed what looked like a guardhouse. Inside, through the window, he saw a wall covered in sketches. Names. Some with ink-crossed eyes. Others still blank.
He didn't stop to look for his.
Then, near a dilapidated blacksmith's anvil, he heard it: chanting. Soft. Rhythmic.
A group of robed figures circled a tree stump, murmuring low phrases Liam recognized.
Liam (internally):
"Cult event. Dynamic worldbuilding trigger. No thank you."
He turned the corner quickly.
A stall caught his eye. Trinkets. Runes. Dusty charms carved from bone.
A woman behind it watched him, unmoving.
"Sealed One," she said. Not loud. Not uncertain.
Liam froze. Again.
"Shouldn't be out in daylight," she added. "Eyes are everywhere. Especially his."
Liam (quiet):
"Whose?"
She smiled. Sharp. Crooked.
"You'll know him when he speaks your name."
He backed away without a word.
[NEW OBJECTIVE: REMAIN UNIDENTIFIED]
He didn't remember that being a mechanic.
His head spun.
Every bluff he threw landed too well. Every vague answer got him flagged. This wasn't just paranoia. The system itself was tagging him as… something. Something unplanned.
And in Mythos Eternal, unplanned things never ended well.
He needed a safe zone. A real one. A place to observe, think, and figure out if the world still followed rules—or if it was starting to make its own.
Liam (grim):
"I need a library."
The village square was behind him now. The path sloped into a quieter district: older stonework, heavier shadows, fewer people. A carved owl totem above a narrow archway marked the edge of a scholar's quarter he vaguely remembered from patch notes—a pre-war sector, once meant to host tutorial lore books and half-baked questlines before being deprecated.
But if this world remembered it... it might still work.
He found the door. Heavy wood. Metal lattice. Burned at the edges.
No one stopped him.
Inside: dust, shelves, scrolls, silence. No music. Just the faint creak of boards that hadn't held weight in years.
Liam (softly):
"I don't care if the books are blank. I just need a corner and some distance from the plot."
He stepped in—and froze.
A terminal sat in the corner. Flickering. Ancient. Glitchy blue text across its glass face:
SYSTEM ROOT INDEX ACCESSED
CLEARANCE: ANOMALOUS
TRACE SIGNAL: SUGYVALS
Liam backed up half a step. Heart in his throat.
Something was tracking him.
Or worse—remembering him.
Liam (hollow whisper):
"What the hell are you remembering me for?"