The Bridge of Redscale ripples beneath your feet, scales shifting with each step as if acknowledging your passage. No sound emerges from your footfalls, yet the vibrations travel outward in visible waves across the bridge’s surface, crimson to vermilion and back again. The amber river flows silent beneath, its current carrying microscopic fragments of light downstream toward some unknown destination.

  Moira’s figure grows more distinct as you cross. She stands perfectly still at the opposite bank, patience personified. The copper of her hair catches the half-light of this broken world, creating an impression of flames without heat. Around her, the landscape transforms, the transition so gradual you cannot pinpoint where it begins.

  The barren stone gives way to soil that shouldn’t exist in this hollow realm. Vegetation rises from it in defiance of the pervasive decay, not the twisted blue-gray trees or inward-curling shrubs, but plants with colors that hurt your eyes after so long in a world of muted tones. Flowers bloom in impossible shades of violet and crimson. Grasses wave in a breeze you cannot feel, their green so vibrant it seems to pulse with each movement.

  As you reach the final third of the bridge, Moira is no longer there. In her place sits a dog with fur the color of burnished copper, watching your approach with eyes that shift from amber to violet to blue. Its posture suggests both welcome and wariness, ears lifted in attention while its body remains perfectly still.

  The last scale beneath your foot flushes bright vermilion as you step from bridge to bank. The sanctum, for there is no other word for this place, extends around you in a perfect circle perhaps fifty paces in diameter. Beyond its boundary, the broken world continues unchanged, making the vibrant life within this pocket all the more unsettling. Trees with silver bark and leaves like liquid gold form a loose ring around the perimeter. Between them grow plants that have no place in this or any natural world: flowers with petals that open and close in rhythmic patterns, grasses that bend toward you as you pass as if drawn by your presence, fruits hanging heavy on low bushes with a soft glow emanating through their transparent skins.

  At the center stands a structure that defies simple description. Not quite a dwelling, not quite a temple, its architecture shifts subtly when viewed from different angles. White stone forms its foundation, but above that, the material becomes increasingly uncertain: wood that flows like water, glass that bends without breaking, metal that seems partially translucent in the strange light. A place between places, is all you can think of.

  The copper-furred dog rises and approaches, its movements too deliberate for a mere animal. As it draws near, its form blurs, stretches, transforms, the transition so fluid it’s impossible to mark the moment when dog becomes woman. Moira stands before you now, her beauty unchanged since your encounter in Faram’s Respite, yet somehow more vivid in this setting, as if the colors and life around her enhance her own vitality.

  ?You chose,? she says, her whispered voice carrying the cadence of leaves rustling in a gentle breeze. ?Not all do.? Her eyes shift through colors as she studies you, lingering on the network of cracks across your hollow form where darkness now flows. ?You took the corrupted souls for yourself. Yet your essence remains. Yet.?

  She turns and walks toward the structure at the center of the sanctum, clearly expecting you to follow. The grass beneath her feet rises after each step, reaching toward her as if seeking to prolong contact. Flowers turn to track her movement, petals opening wider as she passes.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The structure’s entrance has no door, merely an archway that seems to lead into deeper space than the building’s external dimensions would allow. Inside, light emanates from no discernible source, illuminating a circular chamber where the blending of architecture and nature continues. Roots form part of the walls, intertwining with stone and other materials. A pool occupies the center, its water so still it appears solid until Moira passes her hand over its surface, sending ripples outward that carry motes of light within their wake.

  ?I am a Bringer of Souls,? she says, turning to face you once more. The whispered words carry weight beyond their meaning, resonating in the chamber like a pronouncement. ?I was. My purpose used to be to guide lost souls from this world.?

  There is no emotion in her voice, only that distant, soft voice that seems as young as spring and as old as mountains at the same time. As she talks, visions appear in the rippling water.

  ?When the darkness fell over Eorleain, the kingdom almost fell. Sickness, famine, internal wars… Then the God King came. The saviour. The ruin. Eorleain rose from the ashes, and the other kingdoms went to war, fearing the power that this God King possessed. What the God King and his opposers did then, I do not know. This is the result nevertheless. Souls are lost and fragmented, just like the once great kingdom. Then, there are Soulseekers. Like you.?

  Her eyes pierce you, and you can feel the fragmented souls within twist and turn. Your sword hand tightens on the hilt, the grip settling into your palm like pure instinct. There’s not a single flinch in her gaze or posture.

  ?Not the only one,? she continues, gesturing toward the pool. Its surface ripples without touch, forming patterns that suggest humanoid figures, their forms hollow like your own. ?There were thirteen. Ten remain, one of them being you, Soulseeker.?

  The pool’s surface stills, returning to mirror-like smoothness that reflects nothing, not even your hollow form standing at its edge.

  ?Soulseekers can absorb the fragments of souls lost in this world, taking them for themselves instead of guiding them forward.? Her eyes fix on the darkness visible through the cracks in your form. ?What their, your, purpose is, I do not know.?

  She moves around the pool, trailing one delicate finger just above its surface, leaving a wake of light that spirals inward. ?I do not know why Soulseekers exist. Only that they were once beings of power and will before the Sundering. Perhaps the strongest souls shattered differently when everything broke.? Her whispered voice carries doubt for the first time. ?Souls carry the essence of their beings, as you’ve surely felt. They can become you, who you once were, through what they once used to be.?

  The darkness within you surges at her words, the corrupted fragments responding with emotions too tangled to parse. Anticipation? Hunger? Something too complex for your hollow awareness to fully comprehend.

  ?The others are scattered throughout what remains of Eorleain,? she says. ?Some hide, some seek a purpose, some merely exist for reasons unknown.

  Moira stops at the opposite side of the pool, her gaze meeting yours across the still water. ?They all have a purpose, as do you. Fate has bound you, as it has shackled me. The path, however, is yours to choose.?

  The structure around you seems to hold its breath, the subtle movements of living material paused in anticipation. Outside, through the doorless arch, the impossible garden continues its vibrant existence, a pocket of defiant life in a world defined by its absence.

  Your sword waits at your side, its weight both familiar and strange. The grip fits your hand as if made for it, yet the weapon itself has changed since absorbing the corrupted souls, no longer glowing with amber light, now merely steel and leather and silence.

  Moira stands perfectly still, watching. Waiting. Her knowledge remains largely unspoken, her nature a mystery wrapped in beauty and whispers. Bringer of Souls.

  The few soul fragments within you offer no consensus. They are just a part of you now. With more souls, more answers may come to light.

  Where does your path take you?