“Again,” Mortimer said. “From the third measure.”
Nick sighed and adjusted his grip.
The instrument rested awkwardly in his hands, its shape familiar enough to suggest a lute or guitar, but different in the small, irritating ways that made muscle memory unreliable. The neck was slightly shorter. The strings responded a fraction slower. The resonance carried deeper than he expected, vibrating against his ribs instead of his chest.
He played.
The notes came out clean, but not right.
Mortimer clicked his tongue softly. “You’re rushing the cadence. You’re thinking about where the melody is going instead of where it is.”
Nick stopped, fingers hovering over the strings. “Isn’t that kind of the point?”
Mortimer smiled without looking up from his tea. “Only if you want it to sound like a speech.”
The room was warm.
Sunlight spilled through the open window in pale bands, dust motes drifting lazily through the air. Somewhere outside, a cart rattled down the street. Someone laughed. Life continued at a reasonable, unhurried pace.
Nick tried again.
Slower this time. He let the pause between notes stretch just a heartbeat longer, resisting the urge to push forward. The melody settled, the rhythm smoothing out as the instrument responded more kindly.
Mortimer nodded. “Better.”
Nick relaxed his shoulders. “It feels uncomfortable,” he admitted. “Like it’s fighting me.”
“It’s not,” the bard said. “You are.”
Nick glanced at him. “How poetic.”
Mortimer chuckled. “Most things worth learning feel that way at first. It feels like your mind knows what to do and your hands can’t keep up, but in reality, it’s the opposite. The body learns much faster than the mind, so when you can’t do something, it means you don’t understand it properly.”
He took a sip of tea, eyes half-lidded. “Besides, you’re approaching this like a weapon.”
Nick paused. “I am not.”
“You absolutely are,” Mortimer replied mildly. “Your grip is too tight. You anticipate too aggressively. You’re trying to win against the song.”
Nick frowned at the instrument.
Was he really doing that?
Mortimer set his cup down. “Music isn’t about control. It’s about cooperation. You listen, it responds. You force it, it resists. A skilled musician can leverage both of these outcomes to create unique sounds.”
Nick adjusted his grip again, deliberately loosening his fingers.
Then he tried to play again.
This time, the sound filled the room, a little bit fuller than before. The notes lingered, brushing against each other in a way that felt intentional.
Mortimer hummed along quietly.
“Yes,” he said. “There. That’s closer.”
Nick let the final note fade, fingers resting lightly on the strings.
He glanced out the window again.
The sky was clear. It was blue and calm.
He frowned, just slightly.
The nonsense happening on the other side was just a little distracting…
Mortimer noticed.
“Something on your mind?” he asked.
Nick hesitated, then shook his head. “No. It’s just, my attention is kind of split right now.”
“Kiddo, that’s the definition of something being on your mind.”
“Fair enough,” Nick replied offhandedly.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Alright.”
He gestured toward the instrument. “Then, once more. From the beginning.”
Nick nodded.
And played.
***
The library smelled like old paper.
Nick noticed it the moment he stepped inside—the way the air felt thicker, weighted by dust and ink and the faint tang of binding glue. Sunlight filtered in through tall, narrow windows, illuminating long tables and towering shelves packed so tightly with books they seemed to be holding each other upright.
It was calm.
With the storm billowing on the other side of his awareness threatening to pull him apart, the stillness felt almost hostile.
He paused just inside the doorway and let the noise of the city fall away behind him.
Then he exhaled and went looking for Kelsey.
He found her exactly where he expected: buried in a stack of books that looked one careless movement away from collapsing into an avalanche.
She was seated at a side table near the back, hair tied loosely, sleeves rolled up, ink smudged along the side of one finger. Three open books lay in front of her, two more stacked at her elbow, and at least a dozen were piled on the floor beside her chair.
She hadn’t noticed him yet.
Nick took a few steps closer, then stopped when he saw what she was reading.
Topography charts. Regional histories. A bestiary index.
He frowned.
“What’s all this for?” he asked.
Kelsey startled, jerking upright so abruptly that her chair scraped against the floor. She spun toward him, eyes wide for half a heartbeat, then softened into something like relief.
“Oh,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “Nick. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Clearly,” he replied dryly.
She smiled, then gestured at the empty chair across from her. “Sit. Please.”
He did.
Up close, he noticed the way her eyes flicked to his face then away again, as if deliberately refusing to linger. The way she sat forward when she spoke, attentive without being invasive. The faint tension in her shoulders that never quite relaxed.
“So,” she said, folding her hands together. “What brings you here today?”
“I need information,” he said. “Three things, specifically.”
Her eyebrows lifted slightly.
“Go on.”
“The Voskeg Mountains,” he said first. “Whatever passes for a historical overview. Geography. Hazards. Cultures. Whatever.”
She nodded, already reaching for a book.
“Second,” he continued. “I want to know if there are any documented creatures native to the Voskeg range. Especially ones that you wouldn’t expect to live in mountains.”
That gave her pause.
She glanced at him more carefully this time. “That’s… an oddly specific request.”
“I’ve had an oddly specific morning.”
Kelsey studied him for a moment longer, then nodded once. “Alright.”
“And third,” Nick said, voice tightening just slightly. “I want to know what a foxkin is.”
Her hand froze halfway to the shelf.
Just for a fraction of a second.
Then she resumed the motion as if nothing had happened.
“A foxkin,” she repeated lightly. “That’s a broad category.”
“I’m getting that impression.”
She returned with a book and placed it gently on the table between them. “Most people use ‘foxkin’ as a catch-all term, but it actually covers several distinct lineages. Some are beastkin, some are closer to spirits, and some are…”
She hesitated.
“…unknown.”
Nick leaned back in his chair, arms crossing. “You hesitated.”
Kelsey smiled apologetically. “Scholarly habit. When a subject resists neat classification, it’s polite to acknowledge it.”
“Huh,” Nick said. “I usually call that a warning sign.”
She met his gaze. “Sometimes it is.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then she cleared her throat and continued.
“The mountains themselves are old, as you might expect,” she said. “Of course, land is usually older than recorded history, but the region referred to as ‘Voskeg’ is a little unique. It predates the current borders and modern faiths, but not by much.”
“So it’s maybe a hundred years old?”
“Thereabouts. We don’t know the exact moment it became a death zone. We do know that there used to be dwarven cities in the mountains, though. Early on during the Great War, we humans led a grand crusade into the mountains, but our forces were suddenly wiped out one day, and since then, none who’ve entered have ever escaped, except through death.”
“Were they done in by the storms? Or was it the monsters?”
“You’ve seen them yourself, then?” she replied, impressed.
“A little bit.”
She accepted that without comment and flipped open another book.
“The Voskeg range is known for three things,” she continued without answering his question. “Unstable weather patterns, sudden elevation shifts, and… anomalies.”
Nick’s fingers tightened against his arm.
“Define ‘anomalies’.”
She hesitated again, this time longer.
“Creatures that don’t fit in,” she said carefully. “Events that don’t leave physical traces. Encounters that multiple witnesses remember differently.”
Nick sighed. “That tracks.”
She glanced up at him. “Does that line up with your experience?”
“Yeah,” he replied.
Something softened in her expression.
“May I ask why you’re looking into this?”
Nick considered the question.
Then answered with the truth. A portion of it, at least.
“Because someone I’m… responsible for is out there,” he said. “And I don’t like not knowing what they might be facing.”
Of course, he was the one currently running for his life from some mysterious creature, but that was neither here nor there.
Kelsey’s hands stilled.
“That’s admirable,” she said quietly.
Nick snorted. “That’s one word for it.”
She smiled faintly. “Responsibility often looks like foolishness from the outside.”
“And from the inside.”
“Inevitability.”
Their eyes met again.
For just a moment, something unspoken passed between them. Recognition, perhaps. Or mutual restraint.
Kelsey broke the silence first.
“I can help you,” she said. “With all three questions. But some of the information you’re asking for is dangerous.”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Dangerous how?”
“Not physically,” she replied. “Morally.”
He scoffed. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
Her smile didn’t waver, but it did sharpen a bit.
“I intend to,” she said. “But first… tell me, Nick.”
She folded her hands again, posture composed, voice gentle.
“When you learn something that changes how you see the world, do you try to fix it? Or do you try to understand it?”
Nick didn’t answer right away.
Without waiting for a response, she reached beneath the table and pulled free a book that hadn’t been opened yet. Its cover was plain, its spine cracked with age, the title stamped so faintly Nick could barely make it out.
She didn’t slide it to him.
She opened it herself.
“If you’re looking for facts,” she said gently. “I can give you facts. Dates. Measurements. Survival estimates.”
She turned a page.
“But those won’t help you make sense of Voskeg.”
Nick leaned forward slightly. “Then what will?”
She looked up at him.
“A failure.”
Kelsey rested her fingers on the open page, not reading from it, but reciting from memory.
“About sixty years ago,” she began, “there was a caravan that attempted to cross the lower Voskeg passes. It wasn’t a crusade. None of them were soldiers. It was merely a group of refugees.”
Nick frowned. “From where?”
“The Illurian Woods, according to the account. They were fleeing from whatever monster turned that place into the hellscape it is today. Their options were limited, so they chose the mountains.”
She sighed.
“They brought families. Children. Livestock. Scholars, even. People who believed that if they understood the terrain well enough, the mountains would allow them through.”
“And did they?”
Her smile was thin.
“They lasted three days.”
She flipped the page.
“On the third day, the storms came. Visibility collapsed. Paths vanished. All of their supplies were lost. They took shelter in a ravine system.”
Her eyes flicked up to him briefly.
“They thought they were alone.”
Nick’s jaw tightened. The story was sounding awfully familiar.
“Something lived there,” she continued. “Something large and ancient. It was… something that they weren’t able to identify. But regardless of what it was, it had the same problem all monsters do.”
“Which was?”
“It didn’t understand them.”
Nick blinked. “What?”
“You assume monsters understand intent,” Kelsey said quietly. “Many don’t. To them, humans are movement and disruption.”
She tapped the page.
“When the refugees entered its territory, the creature reacted.”
Nick folded his arms. “So what happened?”
“They fought it,” she said. “With everything they had.”
He could already guess where this was going.
“They managed to wound it,” Kelsey went on. “Hit it with all the magic they had. Cut it with swords and axes. But that’s not what ended them.”
She turned the book down and pushed it toward him.
Nick glanced down.
A charcoal sketch stared back at him, crude but clear.
A shattered mountain pass.
Broken wagons.
Bodies half-buried in stone.
“The fighting destabilized the ravine,” she said.
“How many survived?” he asked quietly.
“None. But that’s not the interesting part. Nobody has ever survived entering Voskeg. The interesting part is that there was one among them who didn’t fight.”
Nick looked up.
“A foxkin,” she said.
His attention sharpened immediately.
“She was traveling with the caravan as a guide. They thought she was eccentric. Unreliable. She warned them not to enter the ravine.”
“And they ignored her,” Nick guessed.
“Of course,” Kelsey replied.
She turned another page.
“When the creature attacked, she interfered in some way. Some accounts indicate that she used some sort of illusion; others believe she altered reality itself. Nobody knows for sure what she did, but the accounts are all clear that she was helpful.”
Nick’s mouth went dry. This was sounding awfully familiar.
“The monster withdrew,” Kelsey said. “The caravan wasn’t saved, but their ultimate end was delayed.”
“So they still failed with the foxkin helping?”
“Every reliable Voskeg record we have comes from expeditions that traveled with a foxkin.”
Nick’s eyebrows rose.
“As far as we can tell, foxkin ensure people live long enough to learn something before they die. This isn’t restricted to forays into the Voskeg Mountains, either. Similar patterns can be seen when studying the Illurian Woods, the Forsaken Marshes, the Realm of the Mad God, and the Abyss.”
She folded her hands again.
“That’s why foxkin are treated as omens. Their presence means the journey is doomed. But their presence is also welcomed, because having a foxkin means your journey will always last long enough to uncover something new.”
She watched him for a long moment after she finished, like someone gauging whether a door had opened… or merely been rattled.
Nick folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.
“So foxkin don’t save people,” he concluded. “They extend the timeline.”
Kelsey nodded. “That’s the most charitable interpretation.”
“And the least?”
“They have a strange fascination with stories. They make sure the story finishes being written.”
Nick huffed quietly. “What strange creatures…”
A contemplative silence settled between them. Nick’s fingers drummed once against the arm of his chair before stilling.
“If what you’re saying is true,” he said,” the Voskeg isn’t unique. Do these foxkin only appear around death zones?”
Her eyes brightened. “Good question,” she said, leaning forward, elbows resting lightly on the table. “No. Or… not exactly.”
She gestured vaguely, as if outlining a shape only she could see.
“Death zones, cursed forests, magic saturation points, dungeons,” she said. “I believe that they’re all expressions of the same underlying phenomenon.”
“Which is?”
“Strained causality,” she answered. “Places where the world is forced to resolve contradictions quickly.”
Nick frowned. “Strained causality?”
“It’s an academic term,” she insisted, smiling faintly. “But practically speaking, they’re places where intent stops mattering as much as the outcome.”
Nick looked away, gaze drifting to the tall shelves lining the walls.
Death zones, cursed forests, magic saturation points…
This world seemed full of dangerous-sounding places.
And then there were dungeons.
His hand brushed his pocket unconsciously.
The map was there.
Folded and ignored for a few days now.
He hadn’t meant to procrastinate.
He just… needed a break.
“I have a job I’m supposed to be doing,” he said finally.
She raised an eyebrow at the sudden change in subject, but didn’t challenge him on it.
“I keep telling myself I’ll start tomorrow,” he went on. “But then tomorrow happens, and I end up somewhere else. I don’t know why, but I’m learning an instrument. And now I’m in a library.”
He snorted softly. “It’s easy to keep procrastinating because all of this is interesting, but…” He trailed off.
“That doesn’t sound like avoidance,” Kelsey said gently. “You’ve cleared two dungeons recently. No sane person would accuse you of slacking off.”
Nick glanced at her. “It’s not about other people.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“I’ve heard that ‘they’ is a wise scholar who knows everything.”
“…Touché.”
He sighed.
“There were two strange encounters in my first dungeon,” he said.
She tilted her head, attentive.
“Neither of them were the dungeon boss. Both were old and powerful.”
Her fingers curled slowly atop the page.
“What did they do?” she asked.
“The old man did nothing,” Nick said. “He healed Ray, my party member, said something about ‘providence’ and left.”
He shuddered.
“The other creature, though… it was a god-like entity. It attacked us. It was overwhelming, and I had to make a desperate choice to survive.”
“A desperate choice?”
“Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday. But after speaking with the duke about it, I learned that similar things have been reported in nearby pseudo-dungeons for months.”
“Hmm,” she murmured. “The first man was probably a custodian, but…”
Nick’s ears perked. “You know something?”
She smiled faintly. “I spend a lot of time reading about the worst things imaginable.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“Didn’t it?”
She closed the book in front of her and folded her hands atop it.
“May I make a suggestion?”
“That depends.”
She smiled. “Wary of receiving moral advice?”
“I’m more curious about the strings attached.”
“Then I’ll be very honest,” she said. “I think you should investigate another anomaly on your map.”
He waited, curious about her reasoning.
“Not the most dangerous one. Don’t touch the Ember Hollow yet, for example. Pick one of the quiet ones where nothing has happened yet.”
“And how do you know about the Ember Hollow?”
She gave him a deadpan look. “Really?”
Was it a stupid question? He honestly didn’t think it was…
“And why should I tackle another dungeon?” he asked, pivoting.
“Because I want to see what you choose to do,” she said honestly. “And because… I’d like to learn more about you.”
His gaze narrowed.
“Setting aside the relevance of tackling a dungeon for a moment, you’re awfully upfront for someone pretending to be a ‘mere’ scholar,” he said.
She laughed. “I find honesty more efficient than manipulation.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Only for manipulators.”
“True,” he conceded.
He was quiet for a moment, pondering.
Then he reached into his pocket and retrieved the map.
Kelsey’s eyes landed on it with a hungry glint.
“Alright,” Nick said. “Let’s say I’m considering it.”
He looked at her.
“How does my tackling a dungeon help you learn more about me?”
Her breath caught.
“Ah, right…” she mumbled. Then she squared her shoulders and mustered up her courage.
“I’m going with you, of course.”
Project Knightfall 