Cain came back to himself in pieces.
It was an odd experience, considering he’d been fully conscious as Nick the entire time that Cain was knocked out. The sudden split in his awareness as Cain woke up was disorienting.
Then came the pain.
It was dull and heavy, pressing into his ribs like someone had wedged rocks between the bones. His head pounded, and his thoughts muddled, though the disconnect afforded by controlling two avatars allowed him to distance himself from it somewhat.
The air was warm and close, tasting faintly of old wood, sweat, and unwashed bodies.
A breath rustled against his ears, followed by the faint shuffle of someone trying very hard to be quiet and failing. He caught a whisper, too soft for distinct words.
He lay there for another few heartbeats, letting the pieces assemble.
Then he cracked his eyes open.
Above him was the dim, familiar ceiling of the wardrobe’s interior: dark wood, lit by soft, sourceless light. The floor under his back was flat planks, but his body insisted that it felt like broken glass.
“—he moved.”
The whisper came from his left.
Cain didn’t turn his head right away. He exhaled slowly. The breath caught in bruised lungs, sending a lance of pain through his ribs.
A small gasp answered him.
“He’s awake!”
He turned his head.
A goblin girl and a catkin boy huddled near his side, exactly where he remembered seeing them last as Nick. The girl held a bloody scrap of cloth in both hands like a relic. The boy had one hand braced on the floor, the other still tightly wrapped around Cain’s wrist.
“‘Morning,” Cain rasped.
His voice came out wrecked. It was low and dry, and he coughed, then winced as pain lanced through his lungs.
The goblin girl’s shoulders slumped with relief. “You’re alive,” she whispered as if she’d been bracing herself for the opposite.
The catkin boy—Takkar, if he remembered right—tried to scowl, but it came out wobbly. “It took you long enough.”
“Sure did,” Cain mumbled.
He tried to sit up.
His body filed a formal complaint.
White heat stabbed through his side. The room tilted and, for a moment, his vision went black around the edges, then fuzzed back in.
A small hand pushed lightly against his shoulder.
“Don’t,” the goblin girl said. “You’re hurt.”
Cain lay back down. He rolled his head to look at her properly.
She was young, or at least he thought so. He wasn’t very knowledgeable about goblins, but she looked like a kid. Her dark green skin had a greyish cast, and the bandage around her upper arm had been tied with careful clumsiness.
He remembered the story she told him, the bitter edge when she mentioned her brother, and the way she’d laughed when she mentioned that she was ‘sold’.
“Right,” he said quietly. “I guess I am.”
He turned his gaze, quietly recalling how his previous visit to the wardrobe had ended.
In the far corner, half-curled against the wall like someone had dropped him and forgotten about him, lay a boy, perhaps twelve or thirteen. He was a beastkin, like Takkar, but with dull, mottled fur and eyes that stared at nothing.
He didn’t react to anything, even though Cain had finally woken up.
‘Broken’, the foxkin girl had called him.
Cain licked his lips. His mouth tasted like copper and stale air.
“Alright,” he said. “How many of you are there?”
The goblin girl answered first. “Fifteen,” she murmured. “Including you.”
Cain frowned. He let his gaze wander to take in his surroundings.
People who had finally relaxed lay slumped throughout the wardrobe, keeping a careful distance from the drawers and his hanging clothes, like they were terrified of them.
He shifted again, carefully, easing himself up onto his elbows. The room spun less this time.
A few of the others had drawn closer while he assessed his surroundings.
Beastkin, goblins, and orcs, with one troll in the back, too large for comfort in the confined space, chains still dangling uselessly from oversized wrists. Eyes watched him from every direction, hopeful, wary, resentful, exhausted, hungry.
Gradually, he noticed the effects of the damn curse that Beauty had placed on him.
=You Are Beautiful= was applied to him, not to his avatar, so both of his avatars suffered from the same curse.
It was like that crazy goddess noticed him lurking around and told him to stop hiding and play in the sunlight.
Their gazes lingered not in the way that people looked at their savior, but in the way parched travelers stared at a mirage and argued with themselves whether it was safe to believe.
He almost rolled his eyes.
“Of all the possible blessings…” he muttered. “She made me a fucking pretty boy.”
“You’re not that cute. It’s more like… a cool uncle?” Takkar mumbled absently, then flinched, horror crossing his face as he realized what he’d said.
Cain ignored that and took a more careful inventory of his own condition.
He had a head wound, mostly scabbed. His ribs were definitely cracked, maybe fractured in some places. His body was covered in bruises and small cuts and lacerations. He’d pushed his body and soul hard enough that it would probably take him a while to recover fully.
But he could still walk.
And if push came to shove, he could fight.
Probably?
Well, he could make stupid decisions and pretend like he could fight.
But he couldn’t keep going like he had been.
The previous night had been a flurry of rage. He’d vented his anger on the skill point farms, and Nick had taken the time to put the pieces of his soul back together, but there was still a lingering melancholic feeling.
He couldn’t keep pretending like he was functioning.
He reached inside the pouch on his belt.
His fingers brushed glass. Many of the potions inside had broken during his desperate fight against Commander Aldric and all of the others who were there. Shards of glass bit into his fingers. The wounds bubbled faintly as the spilled mana and health potions inside soaked into the wound.
He managed to find an intact vial of health potion and dragged it out.
The potion inside was a dim ruby, viscous and heavy, clinging to the sides of the glass.
“You had that this whole time?” the goblin girl asked.
Cain eyed the potion. “There are more in the corner over there,” he said while nodding to an opened crate.
He popped the cork with his thumb.
The smell of sharp herbs and iron hit his nose. Healing potions smelled like medicine, which meant that any sane person could tell it wasn’t meant to be consumed by living organisms.
The potion burned all the way down, heat unfurling through his chest like someone had poured fire into his veins. It hurt in a cleaner, sharper way than his injuries did. The pain in his ribs eased from screaming to angry grumbling.
He capped the vial and set it aside.
“If there are any people injured in here, you can use some of the potions in the crate in the corner,” he said.
“Are you sure?” an orc woman near the back responded.
She was broad-shouldered, even sitting down, with dark red skin that had gone muddy with exhaustion. One tusk was chipped and her eyes were tired.
Cain nodded.
She grunted as she pushed herself to her feet and wandered over to the crate he’d motioned toward. She retrieved a few healing potions, and then began walking around, administering them to those who had injuries.
The others watched as she moved, tipping small portions of the potion into parched lips. A goblin boy’s ragged breathing eased. The troll’s bruises changed from black-purple to yellow-green in a few heartbeats.
It helped.
But it wasn’t enough.
Like in most video games and magic stories, the healing potions here had tiers, and Nick had only purchased the lowest tier of potions. It was good for patching up injuries and handling cuts and bruises, but it wasn’t great for major damage.
Cain swung his legs under him and carefully pushed himself upright. His ribs still protested, but it was at a manageable level. Standing made the wardrobe feel smaller, full of too many bodies.
“All right,” he said. “Ground rules time.”
They stared at him.
“First,” he said, holding up a finger. “No one dies in here. I don’t care what you were told before. I don’t care what your individual cultures say about death or honor. I saved your sorry asses, so you better stay alive while you’re under my care. Nobody wants to deal with that kind of trauma right now.”
The orc woman’s jaw clenched. A few of the others rumbled quietly, but nobody spoke up.
“Second,” he continued. “No one sells anyone. No one trades anyone. No one uses anyone as leverage. I don’t care what your old clans or captors did. That cycle ends here.”
This earned him a few disbelieving snorts.
The bent-tusk orc folded his arms across his chested. “You’re not one of us,” he said. “You don’t—”
Cain met his eyes.
“I’m the one who broke into that place and dragged you out,” he said softly. “I crushed their walls and tore their men apart. I killed your captors. You don’t have to like me. You don’t have to follow me. But you don’t get to pretend that I’m not part of this equation.”
The orc crumpled under his gaze. He nodded slowly, refusing to look up and meet Cain’s eyes again.
Cain smiled slowly. “Besides,” he added. “You’re right. I’m not one of you. That’s why I can say what you should’ve said a long time ago.”
A shiver, small and involuntary, moved through the group.
“Third,” he said, dropping his hand. “You don’t owe me worship, or kneeling, or calling me ‘master’, or any of that garbage. I’m not building a new kind of chain. I’m here to give you options.”
The goblin girl tilted her head. “Options?”
“You get to decide what comes next,” Cain said. “Where you go. Who you become. But you don’t decide that alone. Not anymore. You guys don’t get to go get picked off one by one because you were taught to be islands rather than nations.”
The reactions from the rescued people weren’t all that varied.
It was too much.
He saw it land in their faces and bounce off.
That was fine. He wasn’t trying to win them in one speech. He wasn’t a cult leader. Probably. He was just a tired man making promises he fully intended to keep.
He let the silence sit.
It broke from an unexpected direction.
“You sound like her,” Takkar muttered.
Cain looked at him. “Her?”
Takkar’s ears flicked. “The princess,” he said. “She didn’t make speeches, but she always said we had to fight for each other. That if we kept fighting just for ourselves, we’d keep losing.”
“She was right,” Cain said. “Only those with absolute power and control can survive alone without running away.”
Takkar’s gaze dropped. “Did you see what happened to her? Is she…?”
He couldn’t finish the question.
Cain wasn’t sure if the truth would help now. Lexi was alive, and sort of captured. The fact that she was training to be a member of the royal guard would probably be a major shock.
“…she’s captured,” he said at last. “The duke personally took charge of her.”
The boy swallowed. His fists clenched and he stepped back, ears flat, teeth bared in frustration.
Cain let him stew and turned to look over the others.
Fourteen people, excluding himself.
His stomach rumbled faintly.
Food…
As Nick, he’d dumped a large crate of food and clothes into the wardrobe near the entrance.
He pointed to the crate.
“Feel free to take anything from that crate. There is food and clothes in there. Water, I’ll have to figure out still.”
A few of the rescued people nodded and made there way over.
Then there was a tug on his sleeve.
He looked down.
She stood there.
The foxkin girl.
She was small and delicate. Her ears were a pale, silvery blue that matched her hair, her tail brushed the floor behind her like a cautious question. There were no chains on her, unlike the others.
She stared at him with bright, clear eyes and a calm that didn’t belong on a child’s face.
“You’re loud,” she said.
He blinked. “Loud?” he repeated. “That’s a new one.”
“In here,” she clarified, tapping her chest. “Your soul is loud. It’s shouting and bumping into things.”
A few of the beastkin flinched.
The orc woman looked away. Takkar’s ears flicked. Someone in the back made a warding sign and pretended they’d just been scratching their arm.
Cain recalled the moment from before, as Nick, when her silhouette had flickered, and he’d seen…
What had he seen?
He couldn’t quite remember…
“Right,” he said. “And you’re… quiet.”
She tilted her head, considering. “I’m not quiet,” she said. “You’re just too loud to hear me.”
Now what did that mean?
Cain wasn’t sure how to deal with the cryptic mystical stuff the child was saying. Judging from the reactions around him, there was something to it, but he wasn’t well-versed on the subject.
“You’re hurt,” she added. “The potion is helping, but it’s messy. Low-level alchemy knits you together too fast sometimes. It takes time for the body to recover.”
Cain raised an eyebrow. “You know a lot for a kid. You a doctor or something?”
She ignored him. “If you keep moving like that, it’ll take you a long time to heal,” she said. “I can fix it. If you want.”
Every eye on the room shifted to her.
Then to him.
Cain felt the weight of those stares.
There was something there…
A plea?
A warning?
The orc woman opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again.
Takkar’s tail flicked once, uncertain. The troll rumbled in his chest, his gaze dropping to the floor respectfully.
They knew something.
Cain looked back at the girl.
“What’s the catch?” he asked.
She blinked. “Catch?”
“Cost,” he clarified. “Mysticism and magic always have a catch. What do I have to give up for you to fix me?”
She considered that seriously.
“You’ll owe me a story,” she decided.
Cain stared at her.
“That’s it?” he asked.
She nodded. “But not just any story. It has to be an original story. And we have to tell it together.”
‘…what?”
“You want to write a book together?”
“That’s not what I said,” she replied simply.
“Do we need to come up with the story now?”
“No, you can’t tell a story like this in one sitting. It takes many years. Sometimes, it takes many lifetimes.”
“Ah…”
He was started to understand what price she was demanding.
Honestly, he’d rather she’d asked for blood.
“I can’t commit to anything that takes multiple lifetimes,” he said. “But we can tell a small story together.”
He sat back down slowly, lowering himself until he sat cross-legged on the floor. His ribs complained less this time. The girl stepped closer with unhurried steps, as if she had all the time in the world and no one had ever rushed her.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
“No,” he replied.
She huffed. “Fine. Then don’t look at me.”
He smirked and focused his gaze on a spot on the wall instead.
Her small hand settled gently against his sternum.
It was warm.
Cain felt it immediately.
Not mana.
Something else.
Something brushed against the edges of his soul like a curious fingertip, testing the shape of him. It moved through him without traveling, like the room had tilted and all of him was sliding in one direction.
His ribs went cold, then hot, then…
Just right?
He bit back a sound when a bone shifted sharply. Pain flared, then dissolved, leaving a strange, almost itchy sensation behind.
The girl’s expression didn’t change.
Her eyes were distant, like she was looking at a map only she could see.
Behind her, two of the older beastkin bowed their heads, ears flat, hands pressed together in some small, instinctive gesture of respect. Another one stopped himself midway, glancing at Cain as if he’d been caught performing a forbidden act in front of an outsider.
Cain pretended not to notice.
The girl’s hand pressed a little firmer.
“You hold onto a lot of things,” she murmured.
“Occupational hazard,” he managed.
“It’s heavy,” she said. “You should put some of it down.”
“When I find a safe place for some of it, I’ll let you know.”
She hummed.
“Stubborn,” she decided.
“Yup.”
The pressure eased.
The strange energy drew back from his bones, his lungs, his heart. For a moment, it lingered near his head, then retreated fully, like water drawing back into the ground.
“Done,” she announced.
Cain exhaled.
He rotated his shoulders experimentally. The pain was entirely gone. His breath no longer dragged like sandpaper in his chest.
“Amazing,” he said.
The girl shrugged one small shoulder. “You were hurting,” she said. “Now you’re less hurting.”
“Thank you.”
Her ears twitched. “Let’s tell a story.”
“We will,” he said. “If I remember right, you asked for a name?”
She looked down at her hands. “I had one,” she said. “It is gone now, though.”
The orc woman looked away. Takkar closed his eyes briefly. The goblin girl’s jaw tightened.
“You can choose a new one,” Cain said quietly. “Something that fits.”
“You said that before,” she replied.
Cain blinked.
“You can tell?”
She nodded. “You have one soul. When I was healing you, I could sense the split in focus. It’s odd…”
“Huh…”
He never assumed that nobody could detect the connection between his avatars. This was a fantasy world after all, and he barely understood the rules. For all he knew, there was some country somewhere where gods walked around like regular civilians and some super gods ruled, or something.
But it was still unexpected to get found out so early by a little child.
“I want a name,” she said.
“Is that blackmail?”
She smiled. “Give me a name or else?” she repeated, tilting her head to the side. It sounded more like a confused question than a threat.
“Why not pick a name yourself?”
“I can’t.”
Her reply was instant and direct, leaving no room for doubt.
“Why not?”
“I cannot name myself. That is the rule.”
“O…kay.”
He wrote it off as cryptic mystical beings being cryptic and mystical.
“Fine. Any preferences for your name?”
She shook her head.
He fished for something neutral, and his mind caught on a stupid trope from fantasy stories where the main characters were inexplicably bad at naming things.
“Little fox?” he joked.
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s what I am, not who I am.”
“Fair enough.”
He considered her for a long moment before deciding to put it off for later. “I’ll have to think about it. I’m not good with coming up with names on the spot.”
Her eyes widened slightly. The corners of her lips tilted upward.
“Sure. I’ll wait.”
She stepped back, satisfied with their agreement.
The others watched her return to her quiet corner the way people watched a storm cloud drift away from their house.
“Okay,” he said, more smoothly now that breathing didn’t hurt. “Step two.”
Takkar frowned. “What was step one?”
“Not dying,” Cain said. “We’re off to a strong start.”
He rose to his feet properly this time and shuffled over to the crate he’d shoved in as Nick earlier.
A few of the rescued people were sifting through the contents, passing out dried meat and fresh clothes. Cain joined them and started handing out bundles of clothes and wrapped packages of dried meat.
The act itself was simple.
The impact wasn’t.
The troll, whose voice rumbled like distant thunder, confessed in a slow, embarrassed tone.
“I don’t know how to cook.”
Cain gave him a pot and a bag of grain. “Good news,” he said. “You’re promoted to assistant chef. You’ll figure it out.”
The orc woman took food for herself and a carefully measured portion for the boy curled in the corner.
Cain nodded and added a blanket to her arms.
The goblin girl accepted a shirt two sizes too large and a belt to wrangle it with. “Do you have a plan?” she asked.
“I do,” he said.
“Liar.”
He grinned. “You can tell?”
She smirked back, the first expression on her face that looked remotely like it belonged to someone her age.
Takkar stepped up last.
Cain held out a pair of boots, a simple tunic, and a bundle of meat.
The boy’s hands clenched. “She’d hate this,” he muttered.
“The princess?”
“She’d say I’m relying on a stranger instead of the tribe.”
Cain’s smile thinned. “The tribe sold goblins,” he said. “They traded children. They left their princess alone in a dungeon. Maybe what she’d actually say is that you should stop asking for permission from the people who failed you.”
Takkar flinched.
Then he squared his shoulders and took the bundle.
“Fine,” he said. “But I’m paying you back.”
“Looking forward to it.”
When everybody finally had fresh food and clothes, Cain sat down, leaning against the wall, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
The wardrobe felt… different now.
Less like a storage room and more like the first draft of a camp.
Blankets had been laid out, and people clustered into small groups. The troll fussed awkwardly with a pot while two goblins argued over whether you were supposed to rinse grain before cooking it or just throw it in.
Laughter bubbled up near the back when one of the beastkin tried on boots that were obviously too big and nearly toppled over.
Cain let the sound wash over him.
For a moment, he allowed himself to believe this could work.
That he could carve out something small and stubborn and good.
“Story,” a small voice reminded him.
He glanced down.
“This is page one,” she said.
He thought for a moment, sifting through the mess that was his life. Most of his stories were not appropriate for children. Or adults, really.
“Do you want to be the hero?” he asked.
She considered for a moment before shaking her head. “I’ll be the wise mentor that dies at the end of Act 1.”
“…”
How was he supposed to respond to that?
“You’re expecting to die?”
She tilted her head and stared at him with an innocent smile.
“No? I mean, you’d bring me back, right?”
“…”
She frowned. “Right?”
“…Sure.”
The conversation was getting really uncomfortable. Setting aside the plausibility of anything she said, the fact that she was a mysterious being made him nervous that literally any of it could be true.
Was there a way to bring back the dead in this world?
There had to be, right?
After all, the respawn system existed.
Something shifted at the edge of his attention, freeing him from the uncomfortable conversation.
A tug on the world anchored the entrance of the wardrobe.
He, as Nick, had finally found a safe place to release the rescued people.
“Everyone,” he called.
Heads turned.
“I know you just started setting up camp, but pack it up. I’m going to open the door soon,” he said. “We’re going outside again.”
He met each gaze in turn.
“As soon as you leave, you are free to go, but you are also free to stay. I won’t force you to do anything. I just ask that you keep what you’ve seen here a secret.”
The foxkin girl smiled.
“It’s a secret,” she repeated.
All of the rescued people paled at her words. They nodded quickly, murmuring fearful agreement.
Takkar straightened. The goblin girl took the broken boy’s hand and squeezed it, even though he didn’t respond. The orc woman planted herself near the troll.
Cain drew in a breath.
“Good,” he said.
He rose to his feet and moved toward the doors that appeared, the seam between his wardrobe and the real world.
“Showtime,” he muttered.
The handles turned under a hand that wasn’t his.
Light speared in along the crack as the wardrobe opened outward into some other place.
Cain squinted against the sudden inrush of natural moonlight.
A familiar silhouette filled the frame.
Project Knightfall 