Chapter 2 – Flip the Script

Part 1: A Hostile Takeover

He was in the story, which would have been a cool, meta, once-in-a-lifetime experience, if the story wasn’t currently on a narrative fast-track to speedrunning him into an early and extremely ignominious grave.

“And thus,” the High Priest proclaimed, his voice echoing with the manufactured weight of rehearsed tradition, “the Hero of Light is graced by all sovereign allies! Humans, Dwarves, and the Fair Folk of the ancient woods—step forth and bear witness!” The crowd slowly recovered from a tantrum thrown by Renji and tried to focus on what mattered the most to them, the hero.

A chorus of trumpets, slightly off-key, split the air. It was accompanied by the theatrical rustling of expensive cloaks and the soft, self-important chime of glittering jewelry. The assembled nobility shone under the cathedral’s stained-glass windows, each posing as if they were born to be framed in a portrait titled “Smug People Who Are About to Die in the Next Chapter.” thought Renji as the shaking in his hands and legs had finally stopped.

A priestess in moon-white silk, her expression one of beatific serenity, raised a staff of polished silver. Her voice was a pure, lyrical soprano, trained to convey both holiness and condescension. “We call upon the Elven Delegation of Glassgrove—may their timeless grace redeem this blighted and aesthetically displeasing age!”

The massive cathedral doors swung open with a deep, resonant groan, a sound that seemed to say Prepare to feel inadequate.

In walked a perfume advertisement: men and women so painfully symmetrical they looked as if they'd been airbrushed into existence by a judgmental god gliding inside. They had porcelain skin, silver filigree on their clothing, and cheekbones that could be classified as lethal weapons. At their head was an elf tall enough to tower over the human nobles, with hair like distilled moonlight and a smile that apologized for nothing and judged everything.

The herald, a man who clearly took his job and his lung capacity very seriously, puffed out his chest. “Announcing Lord Vaelor Thistledown, Scion of the Glassgrove Dominion, Keeper of the Mirror Oaks, Warden of the Sun-Kissed Glade, and—” Lord Vaelor lifted two elegant fingers—a simple, almost lazy gesture—and the herald’s voice choked off mid-title, his mouth hanging open like a door left ajar.

“Mortals,” Vaelor said, the single word dipped in silk and arsenic. “Your faces are… earnest.”Renji blinked from his position amongst the doomed nobility. “Oh. It’s him. The airbrushed sociopath. The walking elf filter with a kill list organized by jawline symmetry.”

Vaelor's gaze swept the hall like he was browsing a clearance rack, a look of profound, cosmic boredom on his perfect face. “So many, brave and asymmetrical features.” His smile tightened, becoming a thin, cruel, beautiful line. “Some are almost passable, in the righteous light of our goddess!”

Renji pinched the bridge of his nose, a wave of familiar annoyance washing over him. He knew this cutscene. He had skipped it, mocked it, and memed it to death in online forums. Vaelor’s entire character arc was a masterclass in genocidal couture; praise the pretty, prune the rest. The fandom had aptly nicknamed him Marie Kondo for faces.

Then the Hero, ever the protagonist, stepped forward, his smile set to “Charming Politician Who is Definitely Not Reading from a Teleprompter.” “Lord Vaelor, your people’s elegance inspires us all to be better.” Vaelor’s violet eyes lingered on the Hero’s perfect jawline, a look of clinical, almost predatory interest on his face. “It inspires many things,” he murmured. “Primarily the desire for curation,” he spoke while slowly laughing avoiding looking the hero in the eyes.

Renji’s stomach did a nervous backflip. If he stayed on script, what came next was a series of tedious diplomatic pledges, followed by the “trial audience,” and then the infamous massacre in Chapter Two where a surprise attack would reduce half the human nobility to beautifully rendered cutscene confetti. That included Ambassador Volkov, who, according to the game’s wiki, was slated to die holding a crystal goblet and a very bad opinion about tax reforms.

“Nope. Not today.” thought Renji as he began to think on how to escape that pickle, his hands scanned his head trying to feel something, until something came up, an HUD in his head, not real interface like in video games, more like a set of memories imprinted onto his mind by this world along with ingrained reflexes of a thousand hours of gameplay. Level: 1. Class: “Ambassador.” Spells: None. “Except” His eyes traveled sideways. A forgotten, useless piece of game trivia surfaced in his panicked mind. In Ebon Requiem Chronicles, even non-combat NPCs can unlock a single panic spell, which was rarely used in the game due to coding limitations for the AI. It was a trash-tier ability, a last-resort option for players who found themselves captured or cornered. It only triggered if the user was surrounded by characters flagged as ‘hostile.’ The spell’s name was “Escape the Dungeon.”

He looked around the cathedral. The Hero. The Priestess. The Knight Commander. The Mage. Fifty self-important nobles. An entire elven death squad that valued aesthetics over ethics. And a High Priest with the moral flexibility of a wire hanger. Not hostile to him, not just yet.

“But they could be.” A wild, terrible, and absolutely brilliant idea began to form, as usual.“Ambassador Volkov?” the High Priest asked, edging closer with a nervous, sycophantic smile. “You seem, perspired. Shall I fetch a scented cloth for your brow? Or perhaps a cleric to attend to you?” she asked out of sheer politeness while trying to hide her annoyance with a human.

Renji’s hands trembled, not with fear, but with the thrill of a lunatic about to test a theory. “Okay. Think. How do you get a room full of the world’s most fragile egos to go universally hostile in under ten seconds?” thought Renji with a sigh, wishing that his friends were here to witness what he was about to do.

He took a slow, deep breath, centering himself. Then he did something no one in this cathedral, no one in this world, could ever have expected. He raised both hands, slowly and delicately, and flipped them all off!

It wasn't a subtle gesture. It was a double-barreled, elbows-high, declaration of war. He pivoted on the heel of his ridiculously expensive shoe like a runway model, ensuring every faction in the room got equal representation in his display of profound disrespect.

The silence was immediate, total, and somehow louder than the trumpets had been. The Mage dropped his staff with a clatter. The Knight Commander made a choked, mechanical noise in his throat. The Priestess gasped like a kettle hitting a rolling boil. Lord Vaelor, for his part, did not blink. He simply tilted his head, his expression one of pure, analytical curiosity, as if a particularly stupid but fascinating bird had just flown into a window in front of him.

Renji smiled, a wide, sharp, and very, very tired grin. “On behalf of the People’s Republic of Go Screw Yourselves,” he announced, his voice clear and carrying with perfect ambassadorial diction, “I bring you all gestures of eternal friendship.” He then turned to the Hero and gave a crisp, perfectly executed forty-five-degree bow.

“And to you, Tutorial Narcissus—may you always find a mirror bright enough and standards low enough to kiss you back.” The Hero's charming expression cracked like sugar glass. His face flushed with pure, unscripted rage. “Guards.”

Ding.

A sensation like a heavy iron lock turning deep inside his bones. The air in the cathedral shifted, tightened, as if a net of invisible, blood-red strings had just been cinched tight around him, all leading from the furious eyes of everyone in the room.

[Condition Updated: Surrounded by Hostile Characters.]

Renji grinned like a madman. “Oh, that’s beautiful.” “Seize that treasonous lunatic!” The High Priest barked, his face purple and twisting in ways no one had ever seen before, a mixture of emotions going from pure rage to hatred was a sight to behold.

Renji whispered the activation words, a prayer to the god of bad game mechanics. “Escape the Dungeon.” The world blinked out of existence. The trumpets cut off mid-blare. The majestic marble walls turned to mist. The scent of expensive incense was violently replaced by the stench of sour brine and rat-fur cold. His boots hit the wet stone with a slap. He stumbled, catching himself on a moss-slick pillar, his heart hammering against his ribs. Gone was the cathedral. In its place: damp, oppressive tunnels.

The alarms from the cathedral were still audible—muffled now, distant and absolutely furious. Renji clapped both hands to his face, his breath coming in ragged, half-hysterical laughs. “I just flipped off the entire continental alliance. In their own holy cathedral.” He giggled harder, a sound bordering on mania. “Evelina, if you saw that, you’d call me a lunatic. And you probably would have been right.” he said wishing that he had a camera to record it.

Behind him, the distant sound of bells was joined by the baying of hounds and the thud of armored boots. The manhunt had begun. He exhaled, forcing the manic laughter down. “Move, Renji, move. You bought yourself a minute. Maybe two.” he spoke trying to get his mind to focus.

He did a quick inventory check; the velvet robes were heavy and impractical, the gold chain around his neck was useless. His pockets contained two gold coins, a tin of diplomat’s mints, a crumpled parchment that was probably his NPC introductory speech, and a small, lacquered case, stamped with the silver crest of House Volkov.

He popped it open. Inside, nestled in velvet, lay a signet of black iron rimmed with pale gold. The face bore a wolf rampant, its jaws open in a silent howl.

AMBASSADOR’S SEAL (House Volkov) Grants bearer the right to issue writs, edicts, and emergency directives under the full authority of the Human Alliance. Authority transfers with physical possession. Do not lose it, you idiot.

Shouts echoed down a nearby tunnel, drawing closer. Renji snapped the case shut. “If this passes with possession,” he muttered, "a wild plan already blooming inside his mind, “then I can sell it and let it breed chaos.”

Smoke, thick with the familiar scents of salt, tar, and cheap fish-oil lamps, curled around his ankles. He knew this place. The Old Wharf Tunnels. An early-game smuggler maze, an optional quest hub, and Renji’s favorite corridor for early game cheese strategies came through here as well as his way past difficult encounters. He ran towards it, hoping that his knowledge of the game was not completely worthless.

Part 2: A Den of Thieves

The rusted iron door was exactly where his game map memory told him it would be. He tapped the secret cadence against the cold metal: three quick taps, a pause, two slow taps, a final, single tap and then a low road knock. Obscure knowledge he’d learned on his third New Game+ playthrough from a throwaway bandit NPC who rewarded obsessive players with access to a hidden language and discounted black market prices.

A small grille in the door slid open with a rusty squeal. Two eyes, hard and sharp as chipped flint, peered out. “What’re you selling, sky-boy?” the gravelly voice inside asked. Renji’s mouth responded before his brain had time to panic, but the memorized lines of dialogue flowed like a second language. “Selling a sun-sigil with wolf-teeth, gramps. Buying hush, maps, and a swig of luck for the road.”

There was a long pause from the other side of the door. Then, a dry, rasping chuckle. “Well, I’ll be damned. A skylark who knows the old cant. Come in, sky boy. Before the city watch decides to follow your fancy smell down here.” A heavy bolt thumped, and the door swung wide.

Framed in the warm lamplight of the room beyond, the man known as Old Latch looked like a rope puppet stitched together from nicotine, salt, and bad decisions. A scar ran down his cheek like a careless signature. His eyes, however, were sharp and missed nothing. “Been a long spell since I heard proper Low Road,” Latch rasped, ushering Renji inside and bolting the door behind him. “Sit. You look like a man who just lost a very loud fight with a cathedral.”

Renji dropped into the offered chair, the worn wood groaning in protest. His hands shook, but his grin was steady. “Accurate deduction.”

“Name?”

“Renji.”

“Too pretty a name for these tunnels, Renji.” Latch’s gaze landed on the lacquered case in his hand. “That's your wolf-tooth?”

Renji placed the case on the cluttered table and flipped it open. The signet gleamed in the dim light. “Leverage.”

Latch didn't blink. Men like him saved their widening eyes for shipwrecks and unexpected tax audits. “That’s a throat-cutter to own, boy.”

“It’s a city-cutter if you circulate it,” Renji corrected softly. “How much for one less dangerous future for me, and a thousand new opportunities for you?”

Latch grinned, a terrifying expression that showed four teeth and an entire business model. “That depends entirely on what else you’re buying, my boy.”

Renji leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. He knew the next lines by heart; they were part of a hidden dialogue tree that led to one of the game's most useful items. “I’m buying one old, ancient map that everyone thinks is a piece of junk. A dram of the finest elven ale. A tankard of stone-brewed dwarven beer. And three drops of pure dragon’s blood.”

Latch raised a skeptical, bushy eyebrow. “Planning a very strange evening, or a felony?”

“Cartography,” Renji said with a deadpan expression.

Latch barked a laugh, a harsh, loud sound that ended in a cough. He hawked and spat neatly into a nearby slop jar. “You’ve got the cant. You’ve got the look of a fool who’s about to win something big. And you’ve got the entire city watch sniffing at your tail. I’ll bite.” He turned and began rummaging through a series of dusty, disorganized drawers, the sounds of crackling vellum and clinking vials filling the small room. “Ale, beer, blood—all pricey. The map—even pricier, precisely because it’s useless and therefore ancient. That’s my favorite kind of lie to sell.”

Renji counted out his two gold coins and pushed them across the table. Latch stared at them as if Renji had just offered him expired coupons. Renji tapped the open signet case. “Plus this.” Latch’s eyes went flat and cold as pond ice. “You’re selling the Seal itself, skylark?”

“I’m selling a problem,” Renji corrected. “A problem that, in the right hands, will breed a thousand profitable little problems all over the kingdom. I want the breeding to happen far, far away from me, in a thousand different pockets. You’re very good at introducing valuable ideas into the world.”

Latch considered this, stroking his scarred chin. The tunnel outside seemed to breathe with them. Boots thudded somewhere above, the sound muffled, the voices of the guards bouncing down through gaps in the stone like dropped pebbles.

Finally, a slow, predatory grin spread across Latch’s face. He closed the case and slid it under the table with his foot, making it disappear. “Deal.”

“Receipt?” Renji asked, half-joking.

Latch snorted. “You’ll get something better. Anonymity.” He shoved a cracked, yellowed vellum map across the table. “Your useless treasure. Try not to cry on it when it does nothing for you.”

Renji took the map, the ale, the beer, and the tiny vial of dragon’s blood. Latch then added two small, corked bottles—one containing a pale lavender essence, the other a golden chamomile oil—and a brittle, sad little weed with limp, grey petals. It smelled like if onions had nightmares.

“Throw-ins, for a boy who speaks the old ways nice,” Latch said. “Lavender’s for calming frayed nerves. Chamomile’s for a sleep without dreams. That little bastard?” He pointed at the weed. “That’s Stenchblossom. You sit it in your enemy’s parlor, and they’ll be forced to move houses by morning.”

Renji grinned. “For me, it’s medicine, for something that will come up later.” Latch’s own grin creased deeper into his weathered face. “The Low Road always did love a clever lie.”

The shouts from outside swelled, much nearer now. Latch’s head cocked. “That’s your cue, skylark. Time to be elsewhere.” Renji nodded. He unrolled the map flat on the table and, speaking half to Latch and half to the air, said, “Watch this.”

He uncorked the elven ale and poured a perfect crescent across the vellum. In the lamplight, pale, invisible lines seemed to breathe, shimmering into existence. He spilled the dwarven beer beside it, and bold, angular lines crawled across the parchment like iron filings drawn to a hidden magnet. Finally, he carefully dropped three drops of the viscous, crimson dragon’s blood onto the intersection of the two liquids.

The map ignited, not with flame, but with pure, cold geometry. Ancient runes blossomed like frost patterns around old scar tissue. Between them, tiny sigils pulsed with a soft, inner light: hidden teleport loci from the Old War, magical fast-travel points lost to every faction that couldn't take a joke or solve a ridiculously obscure side quest.

Latch didn’t swear. He just murmured, his voice filled with a smuggler’s reverence, “Well, I’ll be damned twice.” Renji’s finger hovered over a sigil shaped like a hooked dragon’s fang. “Northern Dragonfang.” Latch hissed through his teeth. “Bad place. Good folk stay away.”

“I’m neither,” Renji said, meeting the old smuggler’s gaze. “Thank you, Latch.” “Don’t thank me yet. If you live, come back and buy something stupidly expensive.” He yanked the door open. “Go.” Renji touched the fang rune. The world blinked yet again.

Part 3: Of Tombs, Tempers, and a miracle

The world blinked, and the teleportation was not gentle; it was a violent, physical wrench, as if reality had been torn open and crudely stitched back together with him on the wrong side of the seam. The scent of salt and damp earth was ripped away, replaced by the sterile, biting smell of high-altitude cold.

Cold punched him in the teeth, Renji stumbled forward, his ridiculously impractical velvet robes offering no protection against a wind that screamed across the plateau with the high, thin note of sharpened steel. He landed on jagged black stone that jutted up from the ground like the ribs of some long-dead, world-eating titan. Snow, fine as ground glass, didn't fall; it flew sideways, stinging any exposed skin. Above him, a range of impossibly sharp peaks tore the sky into ragged fangs.

Northern Dragonfang. He recognized it instantly from a hundred blood-stained hours of wikis reading and lore videos. It looked even less hospitable in person. “Note to self,” he chattered through clenched teeth, the words forming as a thought in his mind. “Buy a proper coat next time. And maybe some gloves.” He shoved the precious reagents deeper into an inner pocket of his robe, clutching the Ancient Map as its glowing runes slowly faded back to faint, ghost-like lines. The fang-shaped sigil he had touched still throbbed with a weak, residual warmth, like the ember of a dying fire.

He turned in a slow, shivering circle, taking in his surroundings; the windswept plateau narrowed into a treacherous basalt causeway, its ice-slick steps descending toward a half-buried barrow mouth. The great lintel stones above the entrance were deeply scored with old, angular draconic script. He couldn’t read the words, but the universal meaning was clear in the aggressive, forbidding slashes: Turn Back. You Are Not Welcome. This Place Remembers Being Worshipped.

He swallowed hard, his throat dry, his goal in this god forsaken place was clear; Nithraga the Hollowcoil. The ERC wiki calls this the ‘Hollowcoil Sepulcher.’ Guarded by a level-90 dragonborn who two-shots the entire Hero’s party unless you have endgame gear or a heart and a lot of hours spent on wiki.

A sound behind him—a soft crunch of snow and stone. It wasn't an echo. It wasn't the wind. It wasn't his own movement.Renji lifted his hands slowly, palms open, in a universal gesture of non-aggression. He had no weapon. He had no armor. All he possessed was a glowing map, two tiny potions, a weed that could peel paint at twenty paces, and a brain dangerously overstuffed with esoteric trivia and the emotional scars of a thousand hours of dedicated completionism.

A shadow, vast and horned, filled the barrow mouth. And then, it stepped out into the biting wind. The guardian was a monument of scarred, iron-black scale and snow-stiff furs. He stood a full seven feet tall, his body a testament to a life of brutal combat. A thick, powerful tail, banded in worn bronze, coiled behind him. One of his great horns was snapped halfway down, the stump wrapped in scarred leather—a fighter’s break. His breath steamed in the freezing air. He planted a spear whose head was a single, massive, chipped dragon fang into the ground with a grating crunch.

When he spoke, it was in Low Draconic, a voice that sounded like distant avalanches and mountains remembering their own names. “Turn back, grave-robber.” Renji bowed instinctively, a gesture of respect ingrained from his diplomatic upbringing of his NPC mind, forcing down the full-body terror that was threatening to lock his joints. “I’m not here to rob,” he said, his voice thin in the gale. “I’m here to trade.”

The dragonborn’s lip curled, revealing a row of sharp, predatory teeth. “You have nothing I want, but your quiet death robber!” Renji didn’t flinch. He had to play this exactly right. “Your son,” he said softly, but with a conviction that cut through the wind. “He has a fever that eats the marrow. He dreams of fire. His sleep is shallow, and he finds no rest. No healer in the northern holds can cool him or cure him.”

The spear scraped hard against the stone as the guardian leaned in, his movement slow and deliberate and filled with lethal promise. His entire posture said: Say one more word and I will break you into pieces small enough for the wind to carry away.

Renji held both palms higher. “I know,” he said, his voice steady despite the tremor in his soul, “because I have seen this story. I have read its pages. The armor that lies sleeping in this tomb whispered you a promise in a dream, did it not? ‘One day, a rare flower will bloom on this barren peak. It will make a potion to heal your boy. You have waited. You have killed intruders. You have starved. But the flower never blooms, because this mountain’s air is too dry. It needs coaxing.”

There was a long silence, broken only by the shriek of the wind. Then a low, guttural rumble emanated from the guardian’s massive chest, half breath, half threat. “What coaxing?”

Renji reached slowly into his robe and drew out three items. He laid them gently on a flat, snow-dusted stone between them: the vial of Lavender, the vial of Chamomile, and the limp, pathetic-looking Stenchblossom. “I mix three drops of lavender with one drop of chamomile into this wretched, dead weed,” Renji explained, his voice a calm lecture against the storm. “The combination creates a catalyst. It becomes ‘Breath of Bloom.’ It doesn’t just bloom this flower; it opens it, changes its oils, and turns it into a panacea. You give me safe passage. I will give you the cure.”

The guardian’s ancient, coal-like eyes flicked to the ugly weed. “That is a prank plant,” he said flatly. “It smells of cowardice and bad jokes.” Renji smiled faintly, a flicker of warmth in the biting cold. “Exactly. Everything useful in life starts as a joke.”

The wind screamed between the jagged crags of the mountain. For a long, tense moment, the dragonborn did not move, his gaze fixed on the pathetic offerings. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion that spoke of joints stiff with age and sorrow, he planted his spear firmly in the ground and knelt. A massive, deliberate genuflection of desperate hope. “Show me.”

Renji crouched, his fingers clumsy and numb with cold. He uncorked the Lavender. “One… two… three…” The tiny drops fell, freezing almost instantly on the petal. He uncorked the Chamomile. “And… sleep…” A single golden drop joined the others.

Nothing happened.

He stared at the inert weed, his heart sinking. “…Any time now,” he whispered. “Please?”

The guardian’s massive, scaled hand flexed on the shaft of his spear.

Renji closed his eyes. He did the one thing every rational instinct, every ounce of his legal training, every defense mechanism in him screamed not to do: he prayed. Not to a god he didn't believe in, but to an idea.

“Evelina,” he breathed into the cold, a plume of white vapor leaving his lips. “If you’re anywhere in this world, if any part of my stupid, obsessive belief has any weight at all, let this flower bloom.”

One heartbeat. Then another.

The Stenchblossom shivered.

A faint line of color, delicate as a watercolor brushstroke, bled up its dead veins. Grey shifted to a deep, bruised purple, then to a slow, radiant blue—soft and unnatural, like moonlight shining through ice. The foul stink sizzled away, replaced by something clean, sharp, and stubbornly sweet. It was the smell of a window being thrown open in a sickroom after a long fever has finally broken.

The petals unfurled.

The guardian made a low, guttural sound in the back of his throat, not quite a prayer, not quite a curse, but something in between. Renji quickly held a small clay cup beneath the blossom’s heart and gently wrung three clear, silvery drops from its center. They hit the bottom of the cup with a high, pure chime, like tiny silver bells ringing underwater.

He extended the cup with both hands, an offering of impossible hope. “Breath of Bloom. For your son.”

The guardian took it with hands like anvils, his massive fingers cradling the tiny cup as if it might shatter from a single wrong breath. For one long, profound moment, his ancient, weary eyes were no longer those of a guardian, they were eyes of a father who had finally seen hope. “Go,” he said, his voice rough with an emotion he had clearly not felt in a long time. “The gate opens for you. Touch nothing that screams. Walk only where the stones remember being warm.”

Renji stood, his own chest tight from cold and stress. “Thank you.”

The guardian simply stepped aside. The barrow mouth yawned before him—dark, cold, and breathing a long, slow sigh of ancient air.

Renji gathered what was left of his courage, and stepped into the dark. The dark obliged by walking into him. It didn't wait to be challenged. It met him halfway, a presence as heavy and intimate as a shroud, brushing against his skin like a memory with bad breath. Whispers slithered along the walls, half-words, half-itches just behind the eyes. His own breath fogged, then didn’t. His heartbeat, a frantic drum moments before, now thumped loud and then seemed to forget what number came next. The stone of the tomb wasn't cold. It was tired. And he felt that weariness seep into him, a weight settling on his shoulders, in his thoughts, on the little hinge in his chest where fear opens and closes.

[You are afflicted: Numb.] [You are afflicted: Sway.] [You are afflicted: Misremember.]

“Oh, fun,” Renji muttered, his voice sounding flat and distant to his own ears. “Debuff bingo.” The Numbness was the worst; it was sanding the edges off his panic, leaving a dull, dangerous apathy in its place. Torches, burning with a cold, greenish-white light, guttered in sconces carved like human rib bones. The flames didn't push back the dark; they seemed to salt it, making it heavier. Serpent spirals wound across the walls in intricate carvings: jaws eating tails, crowns made of teeth, great dragons coiled around faceless, armored figures. And everywhere, circles—endless, looping circles, etched into the stone as if the tomb itself were practicing a single, maddening letter of a forgotten alphabet.

He knew this layout. He had run it in every glitchless speedrun and 100% chaos-route playthrough. “Left at the dip in the floor. Right where the hanging icicles look like a frozen harp. Straight until the air starts to taste like old coins. Then…”

“Hello,there, foolish wanderer” said a voice, like velvet being drawn over the edge of a freshly sharpened knife.

Renji stopped dead.

The voice came from everywhere at once—and from the single, upright sarcophagus at the far end of the chamber. It was a coffin of fused bone and black iron, tall as a doorframe, its surface scaled and veined with the patterns of old, internal heat. A relief-carved suit of armor was inlaid on its lid: a breastplate with dragon-scale facets, a helm crowned with wicked, horned ridges, and gauntlets shaped like snarling jaws. The eyes in the carving were hollow.

Then, they opened, revealing points of smoldering, intelligent light. “Another thief,” the voice purred. “Another little pilgrim, come to be worn to death like a favorite coat.”

Renji wiped his suddenly clammy palms on his borrowed velvet robes. “Hi. Love the place. Very… OSHA is non-compliant.”

“Step closer,” the voice crooned, a sound that promised everything and nothing. “Let me see what kind of hunger wears you.”

Visions, sharp and seductive, skittered across the edges of his thoughts. Gold spilling from his hands. The throats of his enemies opening at his command. Power, raw and intoxicating, rippling from his skin like static electricity. Then, softer, more insidious hooks: the adoration of a crowd, the touch of hands that wanted him and only him, a throne that whispered stay, you belong here, you are finally home. The tomb didn't just fight with fear; it fished with loneliness.

“Cute,” Renji said, forcing the word out. “But you’ll have to try to be subtler. I’m already broken in completely different, much weirder places.” A chuckle that tasted like hot iron echoed in the chamber. “Brave. Or profoundly stupid. You are very… young.” spoke the voice as it continued its probing.

“Chronologically, yes,” Renji shot back, taking a single, defiant step forward. “Emotionally, I’m about sixty and recently divorced from the sun.” He took another step. His knees felt watery, and the Misremember debuff was hard at work, whispering false memories into his mind. “You’ve been here before, you failed then, you belong to me now…” rang inside his mind, but he pushed through it, keeping one image dead center in his mind’s eye: Evelina on the parapet, proud and lonely and real. A lighthouse of ridiculous, unwavering devotion.

The sarcophagus purred again, a sound of predatory interest. “Who is she?”

“Boundaries.” Renji snorted. “You carry her image like a weapon,” the voice mused. “That is… interesting. Many of the mortals who stumble in here bring their gods. Few bring their girls.”

“Don't you dare reduce her,” Renji said, his voice quiet but edged with steel. “You won't like what happens then.”

“Oh?” The lid of the sarcophagus seemed to flex, to breathe in amusement. “And what happens then, little pilgrim?”

“I get very bloody annoying.” he spoke with a smirk.

He reached out and put his palm flat against the cold, carved iron of the coffin. It was like touching a snake that was dreaming of being a forge.

The armor laughed—a low, delighted, awful sound that vibrated through his bones. “Got you,” it said, its power surging toward him, ready to consume, to dominate, to wear him down to nothing.

And then it froze.

Renji didn't see what the ancient, sentient armor saw, but he felt its psychic assault hit the shores of his mind and simply break. His consciousness wasn't a fortress to be besieged. It was a cathedral, and every single inch of it was already occupied. Evelina filled the space in a crashing, overwhelming rush: her regality, her cruelty, her aching isolation, the way she looked away when she said something cutting because she had no gentle words left. Renji’s head was a shrine, a museum, a library wallpapered with her, and in that moment, he opened every single door.

“…what in the,” the armor whispered, its confident, velvet voice now bare, startled metal.

Renji grinned, though he was shaking. “Peak cringe, I know.”

“You… you are not of this plane,” the voice stammered, confused for the first time in millennia. “Your memories… they come in sideways. You loved her before you were even born into this world.” it spoke with it’s own confidence, soundly shaking.

“Bingo.”

“Multitudes. Mirrors reflecting mirrors.” The voice sharpened, no longer trying to dominate, but now fascinated, intrigued despite itself. “Where are your gods? Your kings? Your great, anchoring beliefs?”

“Busy,” Renji said. “And also, not as pretty.”

The psychic pressure receded. The air in the tomb changed. The armor stopped trying to sweet-talk him into oblivion and started, for the first time, to actually listen.

“What is it that you want?” it asked the question genuinely for the first time in its existence.

Renji didn't hesitate. “Queen Evelina Duskbane does not die on a hero’s sword,” he said, his voice clear and absolute. “Not this time. Not if I can help it.”

“So. It is not the conquest you seek.”

“Nope.”

“Nor is it glory.”

“I’ll settle for some good memes when this is all over.”

The armor made a sound like a blade being slowly, thoughtfully sheathed. “Then I offer you a bargain. You will carry me. I will carry you. I will eat your fears and your weaknesses; you will feed my ancient curiosity with your novelty.”

“Novelty?”

“Your world is a carnival made of lies and glass and stories you hold more real than life. I wish to wear it on my tongue.”

Renji blinked. “And the side effects?”

“You will be stronger than you can imagine. You will be less alone,” the armor said. A pause. “You will also be insufferably dramatic.”

“Sold.”

The sarcophagus groaned, and the lid slid open. Metal, deep black and shot through with violet, turned to liquid. Scales bled into shadow and spilled over the coffin’s lip, climbing his arm like fire pretending to be kind. It was cold, then hot, then it was simply, his. Plates slid into place from shoulder to wrist, ribs to hips, helm to jaw—each piece seating itself with a deep, vertebral click that resonated through his soul.

“Wait,” Renji blurted as the liquid helm flowed up toward his face. “If you’re about to say ‘We are…’”

“We are legally distinct entities in a mutually beneficial partnership,” the armor intoned dryly, and the visor sealed over his eyes. Darkness, then clarity: his vision was reborn. Edges were limned in faint light. Depths were annotated with information he didn't know he knew. He could feel the tomb not just around him, but through him, as if the very stone had politely introduced itself. Strength, potent and pure, unspooled in his limbs like steel cables.

He flexed his fingers. The armor flexed back, its surface rippling, shifting from the rugged, ancient draconic scale of its carvings into something sleeker, more modern. More for him. He thought of the Mystic Sentinels posters from his childhood bedroom. Of the Dreadknight Umbral action figure he’d begged his parents for when he was nine. Of all the villains who just looked cooler because they weren’t burdened with the need to be soft and reassuring.

The armor laughed in his head, a pleased, resonant sound. “A villain’s silhouette,” it said. “Fitting.”

Renji looked down at himself. The plating was a deep, shimmering black-violet, with horned pauldrons that suggested both a dragon and a piece of high-end theater. The visor was shaped like a fanged, predatory grin. A cape? The armor obliged, spinning a rag of pure shadow into existence behind him, a cape that seemed to move when it felt like it, not when the wind told it to.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked. “I’m not exactly a hero type.”

“All the better,” the armor replied. “Heroes die for applause. Villains live long enough to finish their work.”

Renji’s grin mirrored the visor’s. “Name?”

“Nithraga,” the voice said inside his head, now a permanent resident. “But you may call me Nith.”

“Renji,” he said. “Call me an idiot when I deserve it.”

“I will be doing it so often.” It cooed inside his mind

They stood there for a breath, two beings from different worlds, trying each other on. Then Nith’s tone changed, brightening with an ancient, hungry eagerness. “We are incomplete. We are missing my teeth and my skull.”

“Right,” Renji said, the game lore bubbling up instantly. “The Fangblade and the Skullward. Last seen in the Hallowspire of Vyr Illúvien.” He paused. “Elves.”

“Pretty racists,” Nith confirmed, amused. “Let us go and decorate their sacred spring.”

Part 4: The Symbiosis Trial

The transition was a violent, physical wrench, as if reality had been torn open and crudely stitched back together with him on the wrong side of the seam. He landed on jagged black stone, the world a chaotic blur of wind and snow. After a moment of dizzying nausea, he found his footing and took in his surroundings. The Northern Dragonfang mountains were even more inhospitable than he remembered from the game.

He helped the Dragonborn Guardian, Kaelen, saving his son with the Breath of Bloom, a feat of meta-knowledge that left the stoic guardian in his debt. He was granted passage into the Hollowcoil Sepulcher, a place of deep cold and whispering shadows.

And there, he made his bargain. He offered his body as a host, his knowledge as a novelty. In return, the ancient, sentient armor known as Nithraga offered him power. When the black-violet liquid metal flowed from the sarcophagus and onto his skin, it was a searing, transformative agony. Plates of impossible material formed over his body, clicking into place with a deep, vertebral finality. He was no longer just Renji Volkov. He was the wielder of Nith.

And it was horrible.

The moment the visor sealed over his eyes, the full weight of the armor hit him. It wasn't just heavy; it was a dead, crushing weight, a thousand pounds of uncooperative, ancient metal. He tried to take a step and immediately pitched forward, landing with a deafening clang on the stone floor of the tomb.

“Get up, human,” Nith’s voice echoed in his head, now a permanent resident. It was laced with a profound, ancient disdain.

"I'm trying!" Renji grunted, his mortal muscles straining against the inert shell. "It feels like you're actively working against me."

“I am not 'working against you.' I am simply not working with you. There is a difference. You offered yourself as a vessel. A vessel does not steer the ship. Now, get up. You look ridiculous.”

Renji managed to push himself onto his hands and knees, his arms trembling. "This wasn't part of the deal! You said I'd be stronger!"

“You will be. Once you have proven you are worthy of carrying me, rather than simply being worn by me like a particularly noisy mollusk.”

This, Renji realized with a sinking feeling, was the tutorial level. And the instructor was a sarcastic, thousand-year-old dragon god who hated him.

For the next several hours, the tomb became a training ground for the world's most dysfunctional partnership. His first challenge was simply to walk. Every step was a battle of wills. Renji would try to move his leg, and the armor would remain stubbornly immobile.

“You are thinking about it too hard,” Nith criticized. “You are trying to command a limb. You must command the intent. Visualize the destination, not the journey.”

"That's the stupidest, most new-age bullshit I've ever heard," Renji grumbled, straining to lift a foot.

“It is the language of gods and dragons. Do you wish to learn it, or would you prefer to lie here until you starve?”

Slowly, painstakingly, Renji began to understand. It wasn't about muscle. It was about thought. When he stopped trying to move the leg and instead simply willed himself to be on the other side of the chamber, the armor responded with a surprising, fluid grace. He took a single, perfect step, and then, overconfident, immediately tried another and fell on his face again.

Next came the blade lesson. Nith instructed him to pick up a rusted greatsword from under the coffin, it was impossibly heavy and rusty.

"I can't lift it," Renji gasped, his fingers failing to get a purchase on the hilt.

“Of course you can't. You are a soft, frail creature of bone and jelly. You are attempting to lift it with your arms. The armor is an extension of your being. Lift it with your soul.”

"You're not helping!"

“Let me rephrase,” Nith said, a hint of amusement in his voice. “The armor will bear the weight. Your job is to provide direction. Think of yourself not as the lifter, but as the fulcrum. Now try again, before I get bored and decide to take a nap for a century.”

He tried again. This time, he didn't try to lift. He simply decided the sword should be in his hand. The armor's gauntlet closed around the hilt, and the plates on his arm and back shifted, distributing the weight so perfectly that the rusted blade felt almost light in his grasp. He lifted it, his eyes wide with wonder.

Their first real argument came when they started practicing combat forms. Nith mentally projected a series of ancient, draconic sword stances, forms of perfect, lethal economy.

Renji tried to mimic them, but his body, his gamer's intuition, fought against the rigid formality. "This is inefficient. Look, if I feint here, then pivot, I can open his guard for a counter-attack. Your form is too direct."

“My form is designed to kill gods”, Nith retorted, his voice dripping with condescension. “Your 'feint' is a sloppy, flailing gesture that would get you killed by a moderately competent goblin.”

"It's not sloppy, it's called a mix-up! It's about creating unpredictable pressure!"

“You wish to be an unpredictable flurry? I am a glacier. I am inevitable. We are incompatible.”

"We are not incompatible, you're just a stubborn, arrogant, overgrown lizard!"

“And you are an ephemeral mayfly with delusions of tactical grandeur!”

They argued, a silent, psychic shouting match in the cold, dead tomb. Renji, in a fit of frustration, finally ignored Nith's projected forms and moved on his own. He lunged, parried an imaginary blow, spun in a move he'd seen in an anime, and brought the blade around in a wide, sweeping arc. It was a sloppy, inefficient, but undeniably flashy move.

And for a moment, just a moment, the armor didn't fight him. It flowed with him. The symbiosis, for a split second, was perfect.

“...That was not entirely terrible, Nith admitted, his voice grudging. Your form is an abomination, but your intuitive grasp of momentum is… adequate.”

It was the highest praise Renji had received all day. It was a start. He was tired, bruised, and his soul felt like it had been run through a cheese grater, but he was finally beginning to feel it. The connection. The partnership.

He was no longer just a man in a suit of armor. He was learning to be a weapon.