Episode Two
1898 Words
Jarek sprang up like something had grabbed him in his sleep.
He looked around and his brain could not catch up with what his eyes were showing him.
“Am I in paradise?” He couldn't help but ask himself.
There were green trunks everywhere with thick and wide leaves alongside plants crawling up the broken stone walls of the Spire.
There was moss so bright it almost glowed and the air smelled alive in a way the city never did.
This made no sense…
He pinched himself and squealed when he realized he wasn't dead yet.
He knew enough about forging to know that this kind of growth did not just happen.
For trees to grow like this, for the soil to be this rich, you needed loamy ores deep in the ground, and loamy ores only formed around active special materials — energy crystals, eerie glowing substances, and shadow-infused stones.
And to keep all of that stable, you needed a substantial flame core running underneath it all.
But, the ruined spire had none of that…
He was standing in the middle of something that should not exist.
Before he could think further, a calm voice spoke from inside his head.
Suddenly, something appeared in front of him, floating in the air like words written on clear glass.
"Legacy recognized. Blood and essence connected. Infinite Legacy Forge System awakening."
[Infinite Legacy Forge System — Initial Activation]
Host: Jarek Lorcan
Current Status: Weakened (Toxins + Exhaustion)
Health: 31/100
Essence Reserve: 8/100
‘Your health status indicates the mana of your body and your essence reserves indicate energy points – If essence reserve hits zero, you'll be unable to use the system until it slowly recovers.’
Then it swiped off and showed some words…
New Ability Unlocked:
Scan Vision — Analyze any item or material for hidden properties.
Eerie Fusion — Combine compatible materials to create new items. Success rate depends on quality and host condition.
A faint glow ran around the ring for just a second, then disappeared.
Jarek stood there staring at the floating words…
He raised his hand and tried to touch them. His fingers passed straight through.
He was not dreaming…
The ground under his feet was real and the rough stone wall behind him was also real.
He turned around.
Mira was a few meters away with her back to him, crouched over a patch of dirt. She had a small blade in her hand and she was digging into the soil carefully, turning it over in slow deliberate scoops.
"Mira."
She screamed.
It wasn't a small surprised sound — It was a full scream that bounced off every stone wall in the Spire. She spun around and the blade flew out of her hand straight at him.
Jarek dropped to the side and it hit the wall behind him with a sharp clang and clattered to the floor.
"Are you trying to kill me?" he asked, straightening up.
Mira stood completely frozen with both hands pressed over her mouth. She stared at him like he was something that should not be standing in front of her.
"You were dead," she said. "Jarek, I watched your heart stop. I sat next to you for an hour and you were not breathing." She looked down at the hole she had been digging, then back at him. "I was trying to find enough usable eerie material in the ground to sell in the black market so I could get somewhere to bury you properly."
Jarek looked at the hole then at her face and he imagined her life without him…
"I don't know how I'm standing here," he said honestly. "Something happened while I was out. I don't fully understand it yet, but—"
The glass board appeared again in front of his eyes, cutting him off. This time the message was short and direct.
*Do not disclose the system to anyone. Revealing its existence to another person will sever the Legacy Bond permanently and this cannot be undone.*
Jarek closed his mouth.
Mira stepped closer. "What? What were you about to say?"
"Nothing," he said. "I just woke up and my head is still catching up."
Mira looked at him for a long moment like she did not believe him but was too relieved to push it. She exhaled hard and turned away, pressing her hands against her knees.
The board appeared again before Jarek had even fully processed the last message.
[Daily Task Assigned]
Task: Collect 3 units of Shadow-Infused Stone from the surrounding terrain before nightfall.
Difficulty: Moderate
Time Remaining: 6 hours 14 minutes
Reward upon completion:
— Health restored to 80/100
— Essence Reserve restored to 55/100
— New Ability unlocked: Forge Sense
Jarek stared at the reward numbers. Eighty health and fifty-five essence. That was more than double what he had right now.
Immediately the system disappeared, a memory hit him from nowhere.
It was a scroll — An old paper with brown edges which was covered in small tight writing.
Jarek pressed his fingers against his forehead. He knew he had read it somewhere…
But he could not remember when or where exactly, whether it was in the house library or somewhere his mother had taken him, but the words were suddenly clear in his head like he had read them yesterday.
*The Legacy Forge System does not choose a host by blood alone. It chooses by readiness. When the host has lost everything and survived it, the system awakens. It will push the host. It will demand things that seem impossible. But every task it gives has a purpose. The system does not waste effort.*
He had not understood those words when he first read them. But, he understood them now.
"Jarek."
Mira was looking at him with that glaring face again, the one that said she could guess something was going on but she was giving him space to explain it himself. "What happened?"
"Nothing," he said immediately.
She let out a short breath through her nose. "Right."
She looked around at the green trees surrounding the Spire, then up at the pale sky.
"These trees are not going to last through the night. The Eternal Night doesn't care how pretty something is. It will eat all of this by morning." She crossed her arms. "We need to mine. Find whatever is under this ground and forge something we can burn to keep the dark back. Otherwise we will not survive until tomorrow."
"I know," Jarek said. "But I need to do something first."
"Jarek —"
"It won't take long."
"You almost died last night," she said, and her voice cracked slightly on the last word before she pulled it back together. "You were clinically dead. And now you want to go wander off alone into terrain neither of us knows?"
"Yes," he said.
She stared at him.
He stared back.
Mira pressed her lips together and turned away. "Fine. Go. But if you're not back before the sky gets any darker, I'm coming to find you whether you want me to or not."
Jarek grabbed the ring on his finger and felt the warmth of it against his skin. Then he walked out into the trees.
The Scan Vision worked better than he expected.
He pointed his attention at the ground the way his mother had taught him to point it at metal at the forge, and the information came.
But this time, it accompanied composition of the soil, depth of the ore veins, quality ratings he had never seen before. He followed the readings like a trail, moving through the trees with the floating board updating his position every few minutes.
He found the first shadow-infused stone buried under a collapsed section of old wall, black and cold to the touch with a faint tremor in it that he felt more in his teeth than his fingers.
The second was deeper in, wedged between two tree roots so thick he had to dig around them with his hands. The third took the longest.
The system directed him to a place where the ground dropped off into a shallow ditch and he had to climb down carefully on legs that still ached.
But he found it.
Three units which was exactly what the task required.
He climbed back out of the ditch and looked at the three stones sitting in his palm. They were heavier than they looked. The ring on his finger was burning warm now.
The board appeared.
[Task Complete]
Health: 80/100
Essence Reserve: 55/100
New Ability Unlocked: Forge Sense — Detects the location and quality of forge materials within a 40-meter radius.
The warmth moved through him fast, starting from the ring and spreading up his arm and into his chest. The deep ache in his body did not vanish but it pulled back to something manageable.
He straightened up fully for the first time since the night before and took a real breath.
He felt like himself again — Not completely but enough.
He put the stones in the small sack he had found near the wall of the Spire and headed back.
Mira looked up when she heard his footsteps. Then she looked at the sack in his hand and stood up slowly.
"Where did you get that?"
"I mined it," Jarek said.
She looked at the sack, then at him. "You mined that? In the last two hours? With your bare hands? After dying last night."
"Yes."
"How did you know where to look?"
Jarek looked at her for a moment, then smiled slightly.
Mira stared at him. Then she shook her head slowly and sat back down. "Unbelievable," she muttered, but she was not angry. She was just trying not to smile back.
They sat together near the base of one of the large trees.
Mira pulled out the last of the food from the sack Lancelot had given her on their way out.
She split it evenly and handed his half to him without comment. Jarek leaned his back forward and received it.
They ate in silence…
Jarek watched the sky above the broken top of the Spire and he realized it was getting darker. The deep bruised color was spreading and the trees around them were losing their brightness as the light dropped.
Mira was right… The Eternal darkness will swallow everything.
Jarek was about to say something when he heard footsteps.
It was not one person…
They were multiple and they were not trying to be quiet about it.
Five men stepped out from between the trees. They were rough looking, worn clothes, mismatched weapons.
This is exactly the kind of people who had learned to survive outside their kingdoms by taking what they needed from whoever had it.
The one in front looked directly at the sack beside Jarek's leg.
"We saw you digging," he said. "Hand over what you found and we walk away clean."
Jarek did not move.
The board appeared instantly in front of his eyes.
[Situation Detected]
These individuals are potential recruit miners and also a threat to the host's well-being.
Option A: Convince them to stand down within 5 minutes.
Option B: Forge a stealth blade from your collected materials and eliminate the threats.
Reward Upon Completion: A week worth of food supplies and Loyalty Score Read
Timer: 5:00
- Writer
