The False Flame
You saw the flame go dark—now run with the heretic you were sworn to hunt.
As a lowly lamp-lighter in the Temple of the Tides, you keep the eternal flame burning—until you witness the high priest extinguish it and replace it with a hollow imitation. Now the temple's guards hunt you, and the only soul who believes your story is the very heretic you were sworn to turn in. With the temple's lies spreading like a tide, you must decide: cling to your faith, or trust the enemy to expose the truth. A survival story of betrayal, forbidden alliance, and the cost of bearing witness.
The story begins
The salt wind off the harbor had teeth tonight. You pressed your back against the damp stone of the alley wall, the herring barrels doing little to mask the smell of your own sweat as you tried to quiet your breathing. Footsteps echoed above—the temple guard, their torches painting the cobblestones in flickering amber. They'd found your room. They'd found the blade you'd dropped when you ran.
What they hadn't found was the truth.
You'd watched Orin's hands move over the flame—the click of a hidden latch, the hiss of gas, the way the sacred fire had simply bent to his will. For ten years you'd tended that flame. For ten years you'd believed.
The footsteps stopped directly above you. A voice, low and familiar: Captain Vessa's. "Check the fish market. He knows these streets."
He. Not even a name. You were already just a ghost to them.
Then, from the shadows at the alley's end, a whisper—soft, patient, almost amused. "You look like a man who's just lost his god."
Kael stepped into the torchlight, hood pulled low, a rope coiled over one shoulder. Their eyes caught yours, sharp and knowing.
"I can show you what's underneath the altar. But we have to move. Now."
What happens next is up to you.
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