Urso leads you through the night with wary purpose, keeping a distance that never varies. Close enough to guide, far enough to react should you make a sudden move. The darkness within you shifts and settles, corrupted fragments occasionally rising to the surface before submerging back into the depths.

  The landscape changes as you travel. Rolling hills give way to rougher terrain, where stone pushes through the earth like the bones of something vast and ancient. Vegetation grows sparser, hardier. The strange blue-gray trees with their supplicating branches appear less frequently, replaced by twisted shrubs that seem to curl inward upon themselves, as if protecting something precious at their cores.

  Dawn approaches with ambiguous intent, neither fully committing to arrival nor retreating back into night. The sky lightens to the color of tarnished silver rather than the expected gold or pink, casting the world in a flat, shadowless illumination that reveals everything while emphasizing nothing.

  You pause atop a ridge, surveying what lies ahead. A river valley cuts through the landscape, amber waters flowing from distant mountains toward some unseen destination. Unlike the gentle river near the beach where you first awakened, this waterway moves with visible purpose. Faster, more direct, channeled between steep banks that suggest intention rather than natural erosion.

  Urso's humming changes pitch as you both observe the valley. Something possessive enters the sound, a note of recognition or perhaps ownership. The beast's multiple eyes blink in asynchronous patterns that nonetheless suggest communication, though with whom or what remains unclear.

  The path descends toward the river in switchbacks that appear deliberate rather than formed by time and travel. Stone markers stand at each turn, weathered by ages but still recognizable as the work of conscious hands. Each bears the familiar circle-and-lightning symbol, though here it appears differently with the circle incomplete, the lightning extending beyond its bounds.

  From the darkness within rises a memory not your own:

  Military maps spread across a field table. This river marked in red, a strategic boundary. "Hold the crossing at all costs," you say to your lieutenants. "If the Redscale falls, we lose the eastern approach."

  ?We stand, Captain Harrad.?

  The fragment fades, but your hand moves to your sword hilt unconsciously. Your grip settles into worn grooves that match your fingers perfectly, as if the hand remembers what the mind does not.

  Halfway down the slope, Urso suddenly freezes. The continuous humming from its chest cuts off abruptly, replaced by silence more absolute than simple absence of sound. Its massive form tenses, the overdeveloped foreleg lifting slightly from the ground, claws extended and ready.

  You sense it too. Your sword clears its sheath in a motion that feels increasingly natural, as though your hollow form is remembering skills long dormant.

  From a stand of twisted shrubs to your right emerges a creature that defies simple categorization. At first glance, it resembles a deer with slender limbs and graceful proportions, but its head contains too many antler points, branching in impossible geometries. Its fur transitions from tawny brown at its haunches to deep gray along its neck, with patches that suggest a different creature entirely. Most disturbing are its eyes: Amber like the river below, but with vertical pupils that dilate as they fix upon you.

  When it moves, the strangeness intensifies. The front legs bend in ways that suggest canine rather than cervine design, and a tail too bushy for a deer sweeps behind it. The impression forms of two creatures imperfectly merged, neither fully dominating the composite form.

  Urso's growl returns, deeper and more threatening than any sound it directed at you. The beast's multiple eyes track the deer-wolf hybrid with predatorial intensity, the enlarged forepaw scraping furrows in the stony soil.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The creature stops, head tilting as it studies you both. Intelligence lives in those amber eyes. Not human awareness, but something equally deliberate. It makes a sound that begins as a deer's snort but transitions midway into a wolf's snarl, the dissonance physically painful to hear.

  Your body responds before thought can form. The sword in your hand moves with liquid certainty, weaving patterns in the air that feel like half-remembered dances. Your feet find purchase on the uneven ground without looking, shifting weight with practiced economy.

  The creature springs forward, covering the distance between you with unnatural speed. Its attack makes no logical sense. It leads with its antlers like a deer while simultaneously attempting to bite like a wolf, resulting in a confused lunge that nonetheless carries dangerous momentum.

  You sidestep, the motion smoother than any you've achieved since awakening. The blade flashes out, opening a shallow wound along the creature's flank. Instead of blood, a substance like liquid shadow seeps from the cut, carrying motes of amber light similar to the river below.

  The beast whirls, faster than its mismatched parts should allow. One hoof catches you in the chest, sending you staggering backward. There is no pain, but the impact threatens your structural integrity, the networked cracks in your form widening momentarily.

  Urso remains where it stands, neither helping nor hindering. Its multiple eyes watch with what might be scientific interest, assessing your performance against this territorial guardian.

  The creature charges again. Your blade moves not with borrowed talent but with awakened skill. A feint to the left, then a pivot right, sword sweeping low to hamstring rather than kill. The steel connects, slicing through tendon and sinew, causing the hybrid to stumble mid-charge, its mismatched limbs finally betraying its unnatural construction.

  As it falls, you deliver a precise thrust to what approximates its heart. The blade sinks deep, meeting minimal resistance. The hybrid's amber eyes widen, pupils contracting to pinpricks, then expanding to consume the iris entirely. Its body shudders once, then goes still.

  You withdraw your sword, expecting the rush of escaping soul essence. None comes. Whatever animated this composite creature remains bound to its form even in death, neither releasing nor offering itself for absorption. The liquid shadow continues to seep from its wounds, forming a small pool that reflects nothing, not even the tarnished silver sky above.

  Urso's humming resumes, carrying a note that might be approval or merely acknowledgment. The beast inclines its misshapen head slightly before turning back toward the path, clearly expecting you to follow.

  As you continue the descent toward the river, you notice that the creature's body is already changing, the tawny fur darkening to match the stony ground, the antlers beginning to curve downward like roots seeking soil. By the time you reach the valley floor, a backward glance reveals only a vague mound that might be mistaken for a natural feature of the landscape.

  The river runs before you now, amber waters flowing with hypnotic purpose. This close, you can see that the color comes not from the water itself but from suspensions within it: Microscopic particles that catch the strange half-light, creating an illusion of liquid metal flowing between the banks.

  Ahead stands the Bridge of Redscale mentioned by Moira. The structure spans the river in a single graceful arch, ancient yet undamaged by time. Its surface consists of thousands of overlapping scales in varying shades of red, from deep crimson at the banks to bright vermilion at the center. They appear to be stone, yet they move slightly when the wind passes over them, rippling like the skin of some living thing.

  No rails or barriers line the sides of the bridge. It offers passage but promises nothing about safety. The scales seem to pulse as you approach, as if sensing your proximity or perhaps your nature.

  Urso stops at the near end of the bridge, its humming dropping to a register almost too low to perceive. The beast will go no further. Whatever awaits on the other side lies beyond its territory or purpose.

  Beyond the bridge, a figure waits too distant to identify clearly, but its posture suggests anticipation. A flash of copper catches the half-light, hair the color of burnished metal, familiar yet unsettling.

  Moira. Just as she said.

  The darkness within you stirs at the sight of her, corrupted fragments shifting and whispering. Your sword hand tightens on the hilt, the grip settling perfectly into your palm as if you've held it for centuries rather than days.

  You stand at the edge of decision. Urso waits behind you, Moira ahead, and the bridge between offers passage to whatever lies beyond. Your sword, now blooded and tested, hangs ready at your side.

  1. Attack Urso, eliminating a potential threat before proceeding

  2. Cross the bridge to meet Moira and continue following her guidance

  3. Turn away from both and forge your own path through this broken world