Night settles over Galtic Castle. Effruin reaches the ruined gate empty-handed, rain darkening his torn clothes as corpse-strewn fields stretch beneath the blood-red sky.
He lowers himself beside a fallen wall, rising only far enough to avoid the mud. His ribs protest the motion, and his wounded shoulder hangs uselessly in the cold.
Effruin
The rebellion ended here. Nothing I carried away survived.
Among the rubble, Zev watches in silence: an aged skeleton crouched beneath a broken arch, its weathered ivory frame still and unmistakable in the rain.
When Effruin’s gaze drifts toward the darker drop beyond the wall, Zev rises and plants one bony hand against the stones. The skeleton slowly shakes its head, then points to Effruin and back to the ground.
Zev taps the earth twice, deliberate as a vow, and remains between Effruin and the edge. No words come from the soundless skull, only the patient refusal to let him vanish tonight.
Rain whispers through the ruined castle. Effruin is left with the dead, the silent skeleton, and the unresolved weight of whether he will lie down, move away, or answer the gesture.
“I sigh deeply as I sit back against the ruined wall. Staring out at the sky, I think on my many regrets.”
Effruin sighs deeply and settles back against the ruined wall. Rain threads down the stones while the blood-red sky hangs over Galtic Castle’s silent fields.
His gaze lifts beyond the broken battlements. The years of rebellion, flight, blood, and vengeance pass through his mind without finding any road that leads backward.
Zev remains beneath the shattered arch, watching him. The skeleton’s empty gaze is patient, and its bony posture carries no demand for confession or action.
Effruin lets his head rest against the cold stone. His body stays still, ribs aching beneath torn cloth, while rain and memory occupy the ruined silence.
After a while, Zev lowers himself near the wall again. He does not touch Effruin or interrupt the vigil, merely remains where the living can see him.
Nothing answers the sky. Effruin sits with his regrets until they become another weight beside him, and the ruined castle endures the night around them.
Zev
Zev cannot speak, but his silence remains beside Effruin.
“I tell Zev that I think I like him. I appreciate his silence.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +3)
Effruin
I don't know what you are, exactly, but I appreciate your silence.
The skeleton remains still for a moment. Then Zev inclines his skull toward Effruin, accepting the words without demanding anything more from him.
Zev taps his rib bones once, then points beneath the broken wall. Behind fallen stones, a narrow dry hollow waits out of the rain.
He rises and carefully shifts two loose stones aside, revealing enough shelter for Effruin to sit beneath the ruin without lying in the mud.
Zev gestures toward the hollow, then settles near its entrance. His silence becomes an offered refuge, practical and undemanding beneath the blood-red sky.
Rain continues beyond the stones. For this night, Effruin has dry ground, a silent companion, and no need to explain what he has said.
“I wonder if I could have had a life with Eve the Willow, had I chosen to remain with her to care for the remaining rebels.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +4)
In the hollow, Effruin lets the question take shape. He imagines remaining beneath the red canopy with Eve, carrying water, guarding the wounded, and waking to work instead of pursuit.
The imagined days become plain and difficult: Eve tending the injured, Effruin hauling branches and standing watch, the survivors learning to trust a shelter that does not demand blood for its protection.
Effruin
I could have stayed. I could have built something beside her, even if she never loved me.
For once, the vision does not collapse into accusation. Effruin understands exactly what that life required: patience, repeated mercy, and the strength to remain when vengeance offered an easier road.
The realization leaves him with something solid rather than a wound: he knows the kind of man Eve needed him to become, and that knowledge is still his to use.
Beside the hollow, Zev remains patiently upright. Effruin does not have that life, but he has named its shape at last, while rain threads softly through the broken stones.
“I close my eyes, and let the darkness wash over me. I don't know if I will ever wake or not, but I do not know if I care. I will let the Gods decide.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
Effruin closes his eyes beneath the broken wall. Rain murmurs beyond the hollow, and darkness settles over him without demand, judgment, or answer.
Effruin
The cold stone fades beneath me.
He releases the effort to remain awake. Breath by breath, the ruined castle, the blood-red sky, and the weight of his unfinished reckoning recede into silence.
Zev watches from the hollow’s entrance. The skeleton shifts one loose stone against the opening, keeping the worst of the rain away without disturbing Effruin’s chosen stillness.
Sleep takes Effruin fully. His body remains sheltered on the dry ground, while the patient skeleton keeps silent watch over the unconscious survivor.
Night passes around Galtic Castle. For now, no god answers him, no enemy arrives, and fate is left to choose what morning will find.
Only the rain continues, threading through the ruins as Effruin sleeps beneath the red canopy of the dead.