Episode 14
The March into Grief
The Ruin Marsh was no ordinary land. The ground wept. Trees bent under invisible burdens. Air trembled with quiet sobs. And in the distance, a bell that never rang could be felt in the bones.
Minerva warned them before they set foot in the marsh:
“The Mourner does not fight with blades. He makes you want to lay yours down.”
Kito stayed close, fur bristling with static. Sunny carried a lantern woven from Maker-light, but it flickered as if uncertain.
Rudolph felt the Threadspire pulsing in his chest, tugging. Toward a memory.
First Encounter: The Echo
They found him kneeling in the water—hooded, silent. Dozens of ghostly forms surrounded him: the lost, the forgotten, the mourned. Not dead. Not alive.
He did not turn to look.
He spoke inside their minds.
“You came, child of Elana. Her flame burned me. You carry her spark.”
Rudolph stepped forward.
“I came to end your grief.”
That’s when the Mourner rose and the sky dimmed.
He was beautiful and terrible, like a cathedral built from smoke and regret. His eyes were well.
“You cannot end grief. You can only carry it.”
Trial of Sorrow
The Mourner raised one hand.
The marsh shifted.
Rudolph found himself in a mirror of a life where Sunny was lost. Slain during an early defense of the town. He had failed.
He knelt in that illusion. Crushed.
And the Mourner whispered:
“Stay. Let the pain root you. There is no burden in stillness.”
But then, Sunny’s voice pierced the haze.
“Rudy. I’m still here.”
She had entered the illusion with him, tied to his thread.
“We carry each other. That’s what love is.”
The Memory of Elana
The Mourner flinched.
A vision erupted behind him—Elana, young, aflame, furious, and sobbing. The day she sealed him away.
She whispered to him:
“I never stopped loving you. But I loved them more.”
He fell to his knees again.
Rudolph stepped forward. Offered his hand.
“Come back.”
The Mourner looked up. And for one heartbeat, the weight in his eyes lifted.
“Not for me. But… for her.”
The Gift of Grief
He placed something in Rudolph’s hand, a shard of black glass.
“This was my Vow. The piece of me Elana broke off. If the Foundry finds the other half, it will wake.”
The Mourner faded into mist, his soul rising beyond the Veil.
The lost in the marsh were freed. The bell stopped ringing.
What Rudolph Gained
- Shard of the Vowblade – a broken piece of an ancient God Tool tied to sacrifice and remembrance
- A deeper bond with Sunny, proven through shared pain
- A warning: the Foundry seeks not just power… but love twisted into despair
The Forgemind Stirs
Deep beneath the old world lies the Forgemind, the fractured intellect of the Foundry itself a machine-thought once built by Eryx the Refuser to reshape creation.
It has awoken. And it’s looking for a host.
To be continued…
Brufay 
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