Bound by a geas to a dying dredge-master, you must deliver a sealed cask to the last shrine of the Starless or forfeit your shadow. But the cask contains a living mimic that has absorbed your mentor's face—and the shrine's guardians want it to resurrect their trapped god. As you journey through treacherous ruins and face impossible choices, you must decide: keep your oath, break it, or find a third path that could save you all. A dark fantasy adventure of survival, betrayal, and the weight of promises.
The story begins
The ash fell like gray snow, sifting into the collar of your coat as you crested the ridge. Below, the shrine of the Starless crouched in a hollow of ruined marble—its pillars snapped, its dome cracked open to a sky the color of a bruise. The cask on your back was a familiar weight, but the voice in your skull was not.
"You're early."
It was the dredge-master's voice. The same dry rasp that had taught you to read the dead roads, to barter with scavengers, to survive. But the dredge-master was dead—you'd watched his eyes glaze in the mud of the Gray Fen, three moons ago.
"The guardians are waiting," the voice continued, a thread of mockery woven through it. "They've known you were coming since you left the fen. They've set the shrine as a snare—and you, my dear courier, are the bait."
Your boots crunched on ash. The geas tightened behind your ribs like a second heart, pushing you forward. Fail to deliver, and your shadow would peel away from your feet, and whatever came after would be worse than death.
The cask was warm against your spine. It had not been warm before.
What happens next is up to you.
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