“Now,” Kael called, “would you believe me if I said I found something weirder than cursed loot?”

  Alistair jogged up, Brimma hobbling beside him with a half-eaten stamina root still dangling from her teeth. “If it’s another godling, I’m vetoing interaction on sight.”

  They reached Kael, who stood near a pile of rubble where two bodies lay, bound, blindfolded, but unmistakably alive.

  The moment Alistair’s eyes met the one who stirred, moss-green hair, pale bark markings across her skin, something deep in his bones shivered.

  Not with fear. But with weight.

  Fate.

  [Soulbinder Trait – Activation Triggered]

  A soul of rare resonance has entered your sphere. This essence is linked by fate, not proximity.

  Target: Thessaly of the Hollow

  Traits Compatible: Yes

  Role Potential: Unknown

  Warning: Souls connected in this way often share intertwined destinies. Once formed, this link cannot be easily broken.

  [Ability: Soul Insight – Passive Activated]

  You sense that this soul will play a pivotal role in your future.

  Current Target: Significance – High

  Alignment – Unknown

  Effect – Undetermined

  Alistair blinked hard. Not again. That same pull, like his ribs were being tugged toward her, tightened in his chest.

  Another bond? Already?

  He stepped back half a pace. No one else seemed to feel it, but the System sure did.

  “Of course,” he muttered under his breath. “Why stop at two companions when I can start a cult?”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. This wasn’t the time. He hadn’t even gotten used to his new bonds.

  And now fate had the audacity to throw another glowing thread in his lap?

  He looked at the girl again, Thessaly. She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even stood up yet. But her posture was rigid with pride. Pain too, maybe. And something else, something rooted.

  A quiet strength.

  “I’ll deal with this later,” he whispered. “When we’re not ankle-deep in corpses and bad decisions.”

  With a mental breath, he dismissed the prompt.

  [Soulbond Delayed – No Action Taken]

  For now.

  Brimma tugged off the first blindfold, revealing a face both wild and serene. Moss-green hair framed her features in loose braids threaded with thorns. Pale bark-like markings ran down her neck and arms like creeping vines, and her golden-green eyes gleamed with vertical pupils, watchful, feline. Her shredded leather armor clung to a barkweave corset, streaked in dirt and dried blood, but she sat upright, defiant.

  The second blindfold came away with a flick. Silver-white hair spilled over angular cheekbones and a single scarred eye. The woman’s light armor glinted faintly, arcane threads barely visible in the morning sun.

  Her tunic was torn at the shoulder, but her spine was straight, her silence more threatening than pleading. She looked soft-spoken, dangerous, and very much like someone who counted the exits before saying hello.

  The Dryad blinked, scanning her surroundings until her eyes settled on Alistair.

  “You’re a vampire,” she said hoarsely.

  “You’re very observant for someone tied up,” Alistair replied.

  “Don’t untie them yet,” Kael said, one hand drifting to the hilt of his short sword. “We don’t know who they are.”

  “Alive,” Brimma muttered. “That’s who they are. And bleeding. And probably tortured.”

  Alistair scratched his jaw. “Yeah, but what if they’re murderers? Or worse paladins.”

  The second woman stirred, pale silver hair shifting as she sat up straighter despite the bindings. Her voice was quiet, sharp as a dagger in the dark.

  “If I were a paladin, you’d all be ash by now.”

  “Not helping,” Alistair said.

  Brimma waved him off and began untying them with surprising efficiency for someone with arthritic fingers and a deeply suspicious nature. “We just wiped out a damn army. What’s two half-dead girls gonna do? Bite us?”

  “Statistically,” Alistair muttered, “the odds of betrayal go up every time we add someone to the group.”

  Brimma grunted. “Good. I like betrayal. Keeps my blood pressure up.”

  Kael knelt beside the second woman, watching her cautiously. “Name?”

  “Niva,” she replied, tone unreadable.

  “You got a class?” Brimma asked, nudging the Dryad as she undid the last knot.

  “Thornbound Warden, I am Thessaly.” The Dryad answered. She glanced at Alistair. “You still haven’t stopped staring.”

  He coughed. “Sorry. Just… checking for injuries.”

  Brimma rolled her eyes so hard she nearly toppled. “Sure you were.”

  Thessaly groaned and sat up straighter, her bark-patterned skin catching the sunlight. Her voice was quiet but firm. “You have no idea how long we were down there. The group we came with was wiped out. They kept us as bait. Or entertainment. Or both.”

  Niva nodded once. “They didn’t even bother feeding us. Probably waiting for the cleansing.”

  Alistair stood up and dusted his hands. “Right. Welcome to Team Misery. We’ve got death, sarcasm, and now… foliage.”

  He glanced sideways. Thessaly met his gaze with equal parts suspicion and curiosity.

  Brimma turned to Niva. “What’s your class?”

  “Echoblade,” she said softly.

  “Ooh,” Brimma said, raising an eyebrow. “Fancy. You cut spells or something?”

  “I hear them,” Niva replied.

  “…Right,” Brimma muttered. “Weird girl.”

  Niva smirked. “Likewise.”

  Kael leaned toward Alistair. “Should we… you know… debrief them? Lay down the rules? Inventory access? Rotating chores?”

  “We don’t even do chores,” Alistair said.

  “I mop up blood sometimes,” Brimma offered helpfully.

  Thessaly cracked her neck. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “The plan,” Alistair said, “was to loot, nap, and not add cryptic strangers with mysterious powers to our traveling murder-hobo parade.”

  Brimma shoved a potion into Thessaly’s hands. “Drink. Heal. Join the parade. Try not to die.”

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  Niva took a potion too, inspecting it like she expected it to talk back. “No poison?”

  “If I wanted you dead,” Brimma said sweetly, “you’d be compost.”

  Thessaly gave a slight nod and downed the potion without ceremony.

  Niva followed suit, more reluctantly.

  [Minor Health Restored – +23 HP]

  [Status: Weakened - Cleared]

  Alistair sighed “I swear,” he muttered to himself, “I’m collecting misfits like some kind of cursed babysitter.”

  Kael tilted his head. “You say that like you’re not the worst of us.”

  “True,” Brimma said. “You’re our leader. Which makes us all doomed.”

  Thessaly chuckled.

  Alistair blinked. “Wait. Was that a laugh?”

  “A dry one,” she said. “But yes.”

  “Gods help me,” Alistair groaned, “I’m falling for the dryad.”

  Niva’s eyebrow twitched upward. “You fall easily, vampire?”

  “Only when shoved,” he said.

  “Keep talking like that,” Brimma warned, “and I’ll start assigning you night shifts.”

  Kael snorted. “Who needs rest when we’ve got trauma bonding?”

  The party, five strong now, stood around the battlefield. Scorched trees, cooling corpses, and divine sunlight still filtering through the clouds above.

  A strange calm had settled over them.

  The kind that comes after the storm.

  Alistair looked from face to face. A gnome with a badger problem. A wood-elf with a sarcasm addiction. A dryad who smelled like rain. And a maybe-murderer echoblade watching them like a cat in a butcher shop.

  So,” he said. “We’ve got eleven medallions, no active bleeding, and the world’s creepiest stalker god just gave us fireworks and a shopping coupon. Options?”

  Brimma was rubbing her temples. “The logical thing is to head for the Founding Crystal. Set up somewhere defensible. Rest. Heal.”

  Kael stretched his back with a grunt. “We could also find a cave, curl up like wolves, and cry ourselves to sleep. Just saying.”

  “We could do that,” Alistair said, “or… hear me out, we go back to the portal.”

  Brimma looked up sharply. “What, to wave at the gods again?”

  “The medallions act like a compass now. We know that. And we’ve got enough to cross over, at least for three of us.”

  Kael raised an eyebrow. “You’re thinking of checking the portal?”

  Brimma scowled. “Resting sounds nice. Assuming we find a spot that isn’t haunted, cursed, poisoned, or full of more champions.”

  “The crystal’s safer than that colosseum,” she added. “You want to enter another duel after what we just survived?”

  Alistair held up his hands. “I’m not saying we should throw ourselves into another battle to the death for funsies. I’m saying it might be worth having the option.”

  Brimma arched a brow.

  “You all saw it,” he continued. “The Arena chewed us up and spat us out. We killed an entire warband and earned front-row seats to the gods’ deranged talent show. They’re watching us now. And if we lose the medallions, we lose every route forward. We become stuck.”

  Kael frowned. “You think the portal’s still active?”

  “Five medallions,” Alistair said, “that’s the cost. No more, no less. We’ve got eleven. Means one of us can go in, if we wanted. But once the Cleansing hits, those medallions burn away.”

  “And we’re back to square one,” Kael finished.

  Brimma grunted. “Or dead.”

  The group fell silent.

  Alistair crouched, gathering five of the medallions and slipping them into a small pouch at his side. Then he plucked out two more and stood. He walked over to the two new additions, still seated by the edge of the glade, cleaning themselves with the tired precision of survivors.

  Thessaly glanced up, golden-green eyes sharp. Niva didn’t look at him, but the set of her shoulders changed, too still to be casual.

  He held out the medallions.

  “These are for you.”

  Niva raised an eyebrow. Thessaly just tilted her head slightly.

  “You’re free to leave,” Alistair said simply. “No one’s keeping you here. If you want to take your chances with another group or fly solo, now’s the time.”

  Brimma inhaled sharply through her nose, clearly not expecting that. Kael’s expression flickered with surprise too, but neither said a word.

  Alistair watched them carefully. He didn’t say the rest aloud.

  Giving them medallions wasn’t about generosity. It was about leverage. Trust.

  It gave them a choice. And it gave him information.

  Would they stay now that survival wasn’t tied to him?

  Or would they vanish the first chance they got?

  Thessaly looked at the token in her hand. She ran a thumb along the etched surface like she could read it.

  Then she met his eyes.

  “Thanks.”

  That was it. One word. But it carried something heavy behind it.

  Niva tucked the medallion into a pouch without comment.

  Alistair sighed. “Alright. Options on the table. We can head toward the Founding Crystal and find a safe spot before the Cleansing. Or, we can detour to the portal, confirm it’s still active. Doesn’t mean we step through, but having it confirmed? That’s worth something.”

  Kael nodded. “I’m with him. If we lose these medallions, we might not get another chance. And I’d rather know what we’re dealing with.”

  Brimma muttered something about fools and suicidal plans, but she waved her hand.

  “Fine. But if one of you jumps in that portal without telling the rest of us, I’m turning you into a toad.”

  “No promises,” Alistair said.

  They started gathering their things. Brimma snapped her fingers and rooted her staff into the earth, drawing out a thread of mana from the ground. Kael adjusted his bowstring and tested the fletching on a few salvaged arrows. Niva ran a whetstone across her dagger in slow, precise strokes. Thessaly rose silently, brushing dirt from her ruined armor.

  Alistair checked his pouch one more time. Six medallions remained after gifting the girls theirs. Enough to open the colosseum portal again…if they chose.

  “Right then,” he muttered under his breath. “Let’s go stare temptation in the face and pretend we’re smarter than we are.”

  Kael vanished ahead, melting into the tall grass with barely a whisper. His cloak fluttered once and was gone.

  Alistair adjusted the straps on his pouch and glanced at the others. “Well, if we die now, at least the gods will miss out on the encore.”

  Brimma gave him a side-eye and started hobbling forward. Niva drifted after her like a shadow.

  Thessaly hesitated for a second, then fell into step beside Alistair. She didn’t speak at first, her golden-green eyes flicking from tree to stone to horizon with a kind of cautious reverence.

  It was quiet. Peaceful even, considering the carnage they'd left behind.

  “So,” Thessaly finally said, her voice low, calm. “You're the first vampire I've ever walked beside.”

  Alistair’s brow twitched. “It’s the pale skin, isn’t it? That always gives us away.”

  She huffed a quiet breath that might’ve been a laugh. “I meant… it’s surprising. You’re different than I expected.”

  “Charming? Devastatingly handsome?”

  “Alive.”

  He grinned. “Ah, yes. That one. Bit of a party trick, really. Daylight doesn’t crisp me up because I’m special.”

  “Special.”

  “Mm. That’s what the system tells me, anyway. Haven’t read the fine print.”

  Another silence. Not heavy, just thoughtful.

  Alistair let the silence stretch a moment longer, then gave her a sideways glance. “So. You’ve got the whole mysterious protector vibe going. What’s your story, Thorn Girl?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Her moss-green hair shifted as she tilted her head to the sky, watching a single leaf drift on the breeze. When she spoke, her voice was quiet.

  “I used to guard a place called Verdenshade. A grove hidden deep in the Elder Roots. My sisters and I, dryad-bound, all of us, were its shields. We lived alongside the wild, not against it.”

  Alistair raised a brow. “Sounds peaceful.”

  “It was. Until the rot came.”

  Her fingers curled around her arm, brushing the faint bark-like lines there.

  “Undead. A blight we didn’t understand. One by one, the roots died. The animals turned. And the trees, the old ones, they screamed as they burned.”

  A tightness settled in her throat, but she didn’t let it show. Not much.

  “I fought. Held the border until there wasn’t one left to hold. And when the grove fell... I entered the Arena. Not to win. Not for glory. Just because I couldn’t sit still while the world forgot.”

  Alistair was quiet for a beat.

  Then, “you know, I make sarcastic remarks and hide behind fangs, but now I feel like a dramatic child.”

  Thessaly actually smiled. “Good. Keeps you human.”

  “Unfair. I’m literally not.”

  Her laugh was a soft, thorn-edged thing. “Close enough.”

  She looked over at him. “You joke a lot.”

  “It’s either that or scream into the abyss.”

  “Valid.”

  [Notification – Soul Resonance Detected]

  Potential Bond: Thessaly of the Hollow

  Status: Unclaimed

  Fate Alignment: Interwoven

  [This connection may alter the course of your story.]

  Alistair didn’t even blink. Just flicked the notification aside with a mental nudge.

  A second later, it came back.

  [Reminder – Potential Soulbond Nearby]

  He swatted it away again. Harder.

  “Something wrong?” Thessaly asked.

  “Just my intrusive thoughts trying to manifest into lifelong commitments.”

  “I won’t ask.”

  “Thank you. That already makes you my favorite person here.”

  She smiled faintly but didn’t argue.

  They continued on, side by side. Brimma and Niva were up ahead, the gnome gesturing animatedly about something while Niva nodded with her usual knife’s-edge poise.

  It was… nice.

  Alistair was just beginning to believe they might get a breather when Kael reappeared, his cloak whispering in the breeze.

  “All clear,” the wood elf said. “Portal’s up ahead. Dormant. Looks untouched.”

  “Any champions?” Brimma asked, already clutching her staff tighter.

  Kael shook his head. “No movement. No one in sight.”

  “Maybe they all decided to die somewhere else,” Alistair muttered.

  The others caught up, and together they crested the ridge.

  The portal stood like a cracked fang, jagged obsidian pillars jutting from a scorched stone dais. In the center, five round indentations glowed faintly, empty, expectant.

  Alistair’s eyes swept the terrain.

  Silent.

  Still.

  Then he turned to face the group, dusting off his hands. “Well, here we are. The doorway to more pain and applause.”

  He looked each one in the eyes and said, “so, who’s going in?”

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