The Cursed Caravan
MatureYou guard the caravan, but the past you've forgotten guards a secret that could end you.
You're a hired blade on a routine caravan crossing the wastes when you stumble upon a slaughtered expedition. The sole survivor whispers a name—yours—and a secret that makes you the map's key. Now every faction hunts you, but the survivor recognizes your face because you were dead, and the life you led before is a blank. To survive, you must unravel the mystery of your own death and the power you unknowingly carry.
The story begins
The canyon wind carried the copper stench of blood before you crested the ridge. Below, the expedition lay gutted—wagons overturned, canvas torn to ribbons, bodies scattered like broken dolls across the salt-crusted floor. You counted eleven. Twelve, if you counted the one still moving.
Your hand found the hilt of your blade before your mind caught up. Instinct. The same instinct that had kept you alive through six months of caravan work, through the nights you woke gasping with no name on your lips, only the phantom sting of a wound that wasn't there.
The survivor crawled toward the shadow of an overturned wagon, dragging a useless leg. You descended the switchback trail, boots crunching on ancient shale. Up close, you saw the ruin of his face—half the skin scorched away, the remaining eye wide and wild.
He saw you. And he recoiled.
"No," he rasped, scrabbling backward. "No, no, no. You died. I saw you die."
Your tattoo itched beneath your sleeve—the strange, branching symbol you'd woken with. The one that matched nothing you'd ever seen.
His shaking hand pressed a worn leather map into your palm. "They're coming back," he breathed. "For this. For you."
The canyon fell silent. Then you heard it—the distant grind of engines, echoing off the walls.
What happens next is up to you.
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