The village was silent.
That was the first thing that bothered me.
Villages were never truly quiet, even abandoned ones. Wind usually rattled shutters. Animals moved through empty streets. Something always made noise.
Here, there was nothing.
I tightened my grip on the strap of my pack and kept walking.
The road leading in was cracked and uneven, stones split apart like they had been forced up from below. I had seen roads like this before. Every one of them led back toward the Rift.
I stopped at the first signpost.
Most of the paint had been scraped off, but I could still see the empire's seal burned into the wood. A crown above three lines. The mark of imperial protection.
I stared at it longer than I should have.
"So much for protection," I muttered.
The empire had abandoned this place early. I knew that much. When chaos first started spilling out of the Rift, the empire pulled its soldiers back to the fortified cities. Villages like this one were labeled unsustainable.
That was the word they used.
I stepped past the sign and into the village.
Houses lined the road, doors hanging open or broken entirely. Tools lay where they had been dropped, buckets, axes, broken carts. No signs of a fight. No scorch marks. No blood in the street.
People had left in a hurry.
Or they hadn't left at all.
I checked the first house carefully, knife in hand.
Inside, the air smelled stale. A table sat in the center of the room with bowls still set out. The food inside had rotted into something gray and unrecognizable.
I didn't touch it.
I moved from house to house, keeping my steps light. I found dried grain, a cracked waterskin, and a piece of jerky so hard I would need to soak it before eating. I took those and left the rest.
In the center of the village was a small square with a well.
I leaned over the edge and looked down.
Dark water stared back at me.
I dropped a pebble in and listened. It took too long to hear the splash.
I stepped away.
That was when I noticed the shrine.
It stood at the far end of the village, half-hidden behind collapsed fencing. It was small, made of pale stone, with the symbol of the empire's favored god carved above the door.
The symbol had been split down the middle.
Someone had done it deliberately.
I felt a tightness in my chest as I approached.
Shrines were supposed to be safe. Even chaos beasts usually avoided them. Or they used to.
I pushed the door open.
The air inside was cold.
Dust coated the floor and benches. Candles had melted down into useless stubs. The stained-glass windows were cracked, letting in dull gray light.
At the altar, something floated.
I stopped.
It was a book.
It hovered a few feet above the stone, completely still. No strings. No magic circle. Just… there.
The cover was black, worn smooth, with no title. No markings.
My instincts screamed at me to leave.
I should have listened.
I took a step closer.
The air felt heavier, as if pressure were building in my ears. Symbols flickered around the book, appearing and vanishing before I could focus on them.
"This is a bad idea," I said quietly.
But for some reason, I could not turn away. I had to get closer to this thing, so I reached my hand out.
The moment my fingers crossed into the space beneath it, pain exploded up my right arm.
I screamed and fell to my knees.
Black markings spread across my skin, wrapping around my wrist and crawling upward. It felt as if something were carving into me from the inside.
"What the hell!" I shouted, grabbing my arm.
The markings didn't slow.
My bones cracked.
I bit down hard enough that my teeth hurt, trying not to scream again. My arm twisted at an angle it shouldn't have been able to twist.
The book drifted closer.
I felt something pull.
Not tug.
Pull.
My right arm went numb.
For a second, I thought the pain was over.
Then I looked down.
My arm was gone, not cut off, not bleeding.
Gone.
The sleeve of my tunic hung empty.
I stared, my mind refusing to accept it.
Then darkness poured into the space where my arm had been.
It burned and froze at the same time. Something took shape slowly, veins first, glowing faintly purple, then muscle, then fingers that bent just a little too far.
A new arm settled into place with a sickening click.
I collapsed forward, gasping.
My whole body shook.
"W...what did you do to me?" I whispered.
The book opened.
Its pages were blank.
A thought pressed into my mind, heavy and cold.
PAYMENT ACCEPTED.
I laughed once, short and broken.
"Payment...payment for what?"
The pain didn't stop.
I clutched my new arm, feeling it pulse as if it were alive. The Codex drifted down and settled into my grasp as if it belonged there.
A sound came from outside.
Low.
Wet.
I turned toward the door.
Something crept into the shrine.
It was shaped like a hound, but wrong. Too many legs. Flesh shifting between black and blue. Purple eyes locked onto me.
A Chaos Hound.
My body screamed at me to run.
I couldn't.
It lunged.
I raised my right arm on instinct.
My hand closed around its throat.
The moment I touched it, something pulled again, stronger this time.
Energy poured out of the hound and into my arm. The creature thrashed, claws ripping into the stone, but it couldn't break free.
I felt it draining.
The hound shriveled in my grip, its body collapsing in on itself until it fell apart into ash.
I dropped it and stumbled back, breathing hard.
My arm glowed faintly.
I stared at it.
"I didn't do that," I said.
Something flickered in the air in front of me.
Words appeared, clean and bright.
SYSTEM: UNWRITTEN INITIALIZING
HOST CONFIRMED
I swallowed.
The village was silent again.
Outside, the Rift loomed, stretching across the sky like a wound that would never heal.
I looked down at the Codex in my hand.
Whatever it was it ahd given me the power to fight back...I just didn't know the price that would come with it.