The first thing Ash noticed was the smell.
Not rot. Not blood. Just… people. Smoke, iron, burnt oil. Civilization, trying to survive its own death.
Ahead, through a break in the ridge trees, stood a crooked wooden post with a weathered sign bolted to it. The letters were faded, the paint half-flaked, but still readable.
HEARTHMERE – TRADE TOWN
Population: Unclear
Faith: Don't Ask
Elira tilted her head. "Well. At least they're honest."
Ash scanned the terrain. Smoke haze in the distance. Wind carried faint scents — dirt, iron, stale woodsmoke, and something fried in oil. Not animal fat.
He started walking again.
The road into Hearthmere wasn't paved. Just packed dirt and gravel, rimmed by bramble and frost-wilted weeds. The palisade came into view slowly — tall, uneven timber, blackened at the base from old fire damage. Some of the logs had been re-nailed with rusted scrap. Others had moss growing straight through them.
Ash stopped just outside the gate.
No guards. No posted watch. Just a bent iron bell above the entry arch and a crate someone had carved with the words:
DON'T STEAL THE BELL AGAIN.
A mutt stared at them from beneath the post. Didn't bark. Just blinked once and lay back down.
Elira moved beside him, quieter now. Her earlier jokes hadn't returned since they saw the sign.
Ash entered first.
Hearthmere didn't feel dead. Just tired.
Buildings leaned in slightly from the weight of their own patchwork repairs. The roofs were clay-tiled or tin-covered, depending on who had bartered better. Smoke coiled from chimneys like sighs. A woman poured water into a cracked basin in the street while a kid sat nearby carving notches into a stick.
They passed a blacksmith's corner — not open yet. No embers. Just cooling tools on a bench, all iron, no enchantment.
Ash counted every visible weapon. Three swords, a quarterstaff, two crossbows with fraying cords. All civilian-tier. No soldiers. Just hardened locals with poor posture and sharp eyes.
The kind that had survived a lot, and stopped hoping long ago.
"This place…" Elira whispered. "It's like the gods stepped out, and nobody noticed."
A man walked past with a barrow full of chopped wood and salted strips of meat. He gave them a glance — not suspicion, not welcome, just inventorying. Like checking the weight of what just walked through the gate.
"Excuse me," Ash said, stepping into his path.
The man stopped.
Ash pulled the Stone from his pocket and held it up. "Where can I sell this?"
The man raised an eyebrow. Then nodded toward the center of town. "Guild hall. Big stone building, cracked roof. You can also try the market."
Elira squinted ahead. "That one?"
"That's the chapel," the man said. "No one uses it."
"Why not?"
He gave her a look like that was a stupid question. "Because the gods stopped listening."
Then he pushed his barrow and kept moving.
They walked a bit farther, nearing the central lane. A group of merchants was unloading furs at a stall, speaking low. One of them glanced at the hide-wrapped claw tied to Ash's sling — the curved talon from the Branchgnawler he'd killed.
"Where'd you pull that from?" the man asked.
"Forest," Ash said.
"That's no normal beast. That's a twisted one."
"Worth anything?"
"More than most. If the Guild doesn't cheat you."
Elira tilted her head. "Cheat?"
"Lowball price. Say it's unstable essence, take a cut. Sell it to a relic smith for five times that."
Ash took note.
The man leaned back against a crate. "You're new here?"
"Passing through," Ash said.
"Well. You're in Veldenreach now. That claw says you'll live, but if you want to last — register."
Elira went still.
Ash noticed it. "What."
She spoke low. "Veldenreach. I thought it was a myth."
He didn't answer.
She looked around, scanning the faces, the buildings, the broken chapel.
"This region… It wasn't supposed to be reachable. Even the Bureau didn't have clearance records for it. It's not under any god's protection. Not anymore."
Ash started walking.
"Where are you going to the Guild hall?" she asked.
"First we try to sell the stone at the market. Then we go to the guild."
He veered two lanes east, down a sloped side road where smoke curled thicker and stalls crowded the walkways. It was a trade pocket — half-market, half-dump. Tarps covered crates, scrap metal hung from ropes, and kids darted between carts selling dried roots and flint-burnt jerky.
A merchant in a bone-fringed coat waved him over. "You look like you've seen some barkrot. Need balm? Cured bandages? I've got—"
Ash held up the Stone.
The man went still.
Then leaned forward, squinting. "That's twisted essence. Corrupted type. Unstable. Worth… eh, maybe fifty silver."
Ash said nothing.
The man grinned. "Could crack on use. Might even leak. I'm doing you a favor taking it off your hands."
Ash turned without a word.
Behind him, the merchant called out, "You'll be back when it fizzles!"
Elira caught up to him half a block later, still chewing her sweetroot stick. "Was that a no?"
"Scam price."
"Right. You got that just from his voice?"
"No. I got that from the fact he smiled."
He cut back toward the main road, leaving the market behind. The crowd thinned. Air grew cleaner. Stone replaced mud.
At the far end of town, tucked between a tool shed and a dry well, the Guild Hall came into view.
Ash stopped at the edge of a side lane and looked up.
There it was.
The Guild Hall stood squat and wide, built from quarried blocks blackened with soot and time. Its roof was patched in three different materials — slate, tin, and what looked like flattened shields hammered into shingles. A cracked sigil plate sat crooked above the doorway, faintly pulsing with residual flow. Someone had tried to scrub it clean once. They hadn't finished.
A rusted plaque hung above the entrance. The words were still legible, barely:
NO MIRACLES. NO EXCUSES. NO REFUNDS.
Elira stepped beside him, chewing on the last of her sweetroot stick. She tilted her head.
"Well," she said. "They sound warm."
Ash didn't answer.
He scanned the building.
Three windows — shuttered. One main door, reinforced. No guards. No outer posting board. But there was movement behind the slats — shadow shapes, footsteps, muffled voices.
He didn't like it.
Elira tapped her fingers together. "We should go in."
He said nothing.
She tried again. "Look, I know you're allergic to plans that don't involve sniping something from three hundred meters, but this is how people live here. You trade kills for coin. You register. You earn trust."
Still nothing.
"What's the plan, Ash? Brood in the woods forever? We need a roof, something edible, and ideally a map that doesn't scream 'abandoned by god.'"
Ash exhaled through his nose. "Too exposed. Too many eyes. Let them forget we walked in before they remember us."
She frowned. "You think someone's watching?"
"I think someone always is."
Elira looked back toward the street. Her voice dropped a little. "I don't like this region."
"You said it was a myth."
"It was. In the Bureau archives, Veldenreach was red-listed. Not sealed — just… forgotten. Nobody processed souls from here. Nobody ran oversight. There weren't even transfer logs."
Ash looked at her.
She crossed her arms. "Places like this aren't just off the divine grid. They're abandoned."
He turned away from the Guild door.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"Back route. Somewhere to sleep."
"What about—"
"Tomorrow."
Ash didn't look back. Just walked into the side alley, boots silent.
Behind him, high above the Guild door, the cracked sigil plate flickered once more.
Not a glow.
A pulse.
Then nothing.