The moon rose like a bitten apple, red at its edge, hollowing the night into a hunting ground. Sky-Torn smeared ash across his cheeks until his own face seemed a skull and leaned close to the warriors crouched in the grass. Their breath clouded the cold air, their hands twitched on spear hafts, knives, and the rare musket traded long ago from the river tribes. Every man carried silence as if it were a blade.
"Not a shout," Sky-Torn whispered. "Not a song. The spirits hear us only if we return."
They nodded, but he saw hunger in their eyes—the bright hunger of youth who believed themselves made of iron. He had been that once. Tonight he was their shadow, not their fire.
Below them, on the deer-trail cutting the marsh, the colonizer scouts moved. Pale coats glimmered like bones. They swung lanterns on long poles that turned every bush into a giant, shadows stretching and shrinking like living things. Sky-Torn had counted them three nights running: seven men, two with muskets, one with a bell on his belt to signal the fort. If that bell rang, the whole valley would shake with gunfire before dawn. The System whispered that killing them would tilt fate itself.
Quest Progression: "Starve the Fort."
Target: First bloodline. Reward: +100 Villain Points. Risk: +Fear, +Attrition (Severe).
Sky-Torn raised his hand. The young warriors melted forward, crawling through frozen grass, their bodies pale streaks between black stalks. He muttered old syllables that bent sound, muffled steps, dulled metal. He had sung them a hundred times to bless hunts. Tonight he fed them to the System as well, bartering purity for power.
Destiny Twist (Minor) applied.
Probability warp: 12%. Enemy perception reduced. Ritual cost: +3 Spirit.
The wind shifted, carrying the scent of marsh instead of men. Lanternlight faltered as if smoke crossed it. The colonizers paused, heads cocked, sniffing at the air. Sky-Torn prayed to every ancestor who still remembered mercy.
Then Night-Runner leapt from the grass with a wolf's cry, spear flashing.
The killing was quick but not silent. Iron clanged against wood. A musket cracked, throwing sparks that lit the frozen grass in brief orange. A man screamed once before being smothered. Sky-Torn's warriors fought with fury, but fury is never free.
Flint-in-Ribs slid under a musket swing and drove a bone knife up beneath a coat's seam, whispering, "For my sister." Otter-Smile danced on the trail-edges, laughing breathlessly as he hamstrung a scout and pushed him face-first into the mud. Willow-Knee, old for this work, fought like a tree in wind—slow steps, sure hands—until a bayonet bit his thigh. He did not cry out; he bit the wound, spat blood, and kept stabbing.
The bell-man fumbled at his belt. The little copper mouth flashed once in lanternlight. Sky-Torn's hand moved before thought. He flung a charm of antler and thread. It struck the man's thumb. The bell skittered into reeds with a soft chime no one heard over the breathing of men about to die.
Two-Reeds, hardly sixteen winters, charged too far ahead. He was smiling even as he lunged, shouting like a boy chasing deer. His spear struck true, but he lingered a heartbeat too long over the fallen man. Another scout raised his musket. The crack was thunder in the narrow trail.
Two-Reeds clutched his throat as if he could hold the life inside. Blood fountained between his fingers. His smile became a bubbling rattle. He dropped to his knees, eyes wide as if the stars had betrayed him, and fell among the frozen stalks.
Sky-Torn saw it all. He screamed without sound, the silence woven by his ritual catching his throat like a gag. His staff struck the ground, sending a ripple of cold through the roots beneath. But fate had already been paid.
The bell never rang. The last colonizer fell with a knife under his ribs, eyes wide in shock as if the earth itself had betrayed him. Seven bodies lay among the frozen grass, blood seeping into frost. And Two-Reeds lay among them, his skin already gray in the lantern's dying glow.
⸻
Silence returned, thick and wrong. The young men panted, faces splattered. Some laughed too loudly, shaking with the rush of victory. Others stared at Two-Reeds as if unable to recognize that his laughter would never join theirs again. Night-Runner bent over the boy, pressing rags against the wound though no rags could dam a river split wide.
"He died well," Night-Runner said, voice cracking. "Better to die striking than begging."
Sky-Torn wanted to agree, to bless the death, but the words turned sour. Two-Reeds had died because he had bent fate, dared to twist the wind and silence the grass. Balance had answered, and the boy had paid. Sky-Torn's power was no shield; it was a bargain with a coin no one else had agreed to spend.
The System hummed with satisfaction.
Quest Update: First supply line disrupted. Reward: +100 Villain Points.
New Unlock: Corruption Skill Tree Available.
— Dream-Twist (Passive): Influence a target's dreams with subtle fear or desire.
— Taboo-Leverage (Active): Exploit cultural or spiritual taboos to gain control.
— Blood Price (Ritual): Sacrifice of kin converts grief into power. Warning: severe reputation risk.
Sky-Torn closed the boy's eyes with trembling fingers. For a moment, he hated the System's glow in his mind, hated its tally of points as if his grief were nothing more than bookkeeping. He pressed his forehead to the boy's cold skin and whispered, "Forgive me."
The warriors stripped the enemy quickly, pulling muskets, powder horns, knives. They left the corpses for wolves. Only Two-Reeds they lifted onto a bier of branches, carrying him home with solemn steps. Sky-Torn followed, staff tapping like a drumbeat of guilt against the frozen earth.
⸻
The village greeted them with cheers at first. Women wept with pride at the weapons brought back, children ran to touch the trophies, and the council's fire-pit blazed higher. But when they saw Two-Reeds' body, joy cracked. His mother keened, falling across him, her nails clawing his cold cheeks as if she could wake him. His father lifted her away with arms stiff as wood, his face carved into silence.
Others fell quiet, eyes cutting to Sky-Torn in the torchlight. The cheers soured into whispers.
Wounded Bear stepped forward, voice steady, grief written deep in his jaw. "Victory is victory. But a boy is dead. His blood stains your visions, Shaman. Will you call this the price of glory?"
All eyes turned. Sky-Torn stood with staff in hand, the System whispering calculations: Accept blame for +Fear boost. Deflect blame for +Authority shift. Twist omen for Reputation gain. Options unfolded like blades in his skull. He chose none. He spoke only truth, though twisted.
"The grass drinks both their blood and ours. The spirits demand balance. If you want safety, then beg the pale-faces for it. If you want freedom, then bury your sons with songs of warriors."
A growl rippled through the crowd. Some nodded fiercely, pride sharp in their grief. Others glared as if they would spit in his face. The tribe fractured further with every word. The System rewarded him anyway.
+80 Villain Points: Polarization Achieved.
Skill Unlocked: Corruption — Taboo-Leverage.
"Enough," Broken Antler said, stepping to the fire. "Grief is a knife. Hold it by the blade and you cut only your own palms." Her eyes moved like winter stars over the crowd. "We honor this boy tonight. In the morning we talk of forts and wagons."
Swift-Deer spoke from the shadows, voice thin with doubt. "The shaman led victory. The boy would have died someday in snow or sickness. Better this."
"Better?" Two-Reeds' mother spat the word like a coal. "He had not yet kissed a girl."
Slow Mink, pale and sweating, folded his arms. "We cannot bleed for every skirmish. Trade brings blankets and iron. If the shaman wants blood for bread, he should bake it in his own oven."
Night-Runner bristled. "Say that again with a spear in your hand."
"Sit," Broken Antler snapped, and the word carried the old law. They sat, except for the grief that refused any chair.
Sky-Torn kept still. He could have twisted the fire's omen, made the smoke curl into a stag's head again, but the cord of his oath lay heavy. He had sworn not to bend words the ancestors spoke through him. The empty air said nothing he could use.
He raised both palms. "Tomorrow, rites for Two-Reeds. Offerings for the river he loved. And scouts to watch the fort. If you wish to curse me, do it after the rites. The spirits hear curses sharper than praise."
"No curses," Wounded Bear said, though his voice shook. "Not tonight. Tomorrow we speak of war and of the men who would sell us for buttons."
Slow Mink's eyes darted. He did not answer.
The crowd thinned at last. The father of Two-Reeds sat alone by his son, humming a child's song from years ago—soft, absurd, about a fox who stole the moon and put it in a basket. The sound scraped Sky-Torn's ribs from inside.
⸻
That night, Sky-Torn dreamed.
He stood in the council lodge, but the poles burned around him. Flames licked the carvings of deer and rivers, smoke writhed like snakes. The ancestors' voices rose, but each was drowned by the System's chorus—mechanical, sweet, unrelenting.
At the center of the flames sat Two-Reeds. His eyes were hollow sockets, his hands dripping blood that turned to beads as it fell. He whispered: My blood fed your path. Will others feed it too?
Behind him, other figures emerged—women with empty cradles, warriors faceless beneath helmets of iron, elders whose tongues writhed like serpents. All of them spoke at once: Feed us. Feed us. Feed us.
Sky-Torn tried to cover his ears, but the lodge dissolved. He stood instead on a shore no river had ever known. Ships rose from the fog—ribs of wood lashed with iron, sails like the bellies of dead fish. Each mast was a spear planted in the sky. Children hauled ropes that cut their hands to ribbon. When they cried, crows cawed and chains answered like drums.
A bison thundered along the beach, its hooves shod in iron; sparks jumped with every step. It lowered its head and charged the surf. The waves split like ranks of soldiers. From the water strode a man wearing a mask of silver. He had no eyes. Where eyes should be, two mirrors showed Sky-Torn his own face, multiplied and twisting.
"Choose," the masked man said in a dozen voices—ancestors, councilors, children, colonizers, the System itself. "Choose how you will harvest."
The sky cracked—no thunder, only a sound like hundreds of beads spilling. The moon fell into the sea and rose again as a shield hammered from bone. The shield turned, showing scenes as if it were a pool: wagons afire; Slow Mink speaking in secret; Night-Runner kneeling in chains; Broken Antler alone on a hill, singing a law to an empty valley.
Above, the great crow perched on the moon-shield's rim, eyes burning, its beak clicking: Blood is the only road. Choose your steps.
New Skill Available: Dream-Twist (Passive).
Effect: Plant motifs—fear, desire, omen—into a sleeper's dream. Accrues minor Villain Points when they wake altered.
Cost: Spirit (2). Risk: Ritual contamination; dream backlash.
Sky-Torn stared at Two-Reeds, who stared through him. He could plant a dream in Slow Mink—make him wake gagging on beads, shivering at the thought of trade. He could quiet Wounded Bear's grief, turn it to clean steel instead of jagged glass. He could lay a nightmare in every child that would make them run at the sight of a pale coat and never stop.
Taboo-Leverage (Active) ready, the System purred. Exploit—
"No," Sky-Torn said in the dream, and the flames bent like reeds in wind. "Not tonight."
The silver mask inclined as if amused. Then tomorrow, the many voices answered together.
The beach flooded. The bison stumbled and drowned, hooves still sparking in black water. The crow flew, scattering embers that became lanterns on long poles, swinging, swinging. The last thing Sky-Torn saw was his own reflection in the mask, split into three: shaman, savior, villain.
⸻
When he woke, sweat drenched his chest. The cord of his oath still weighed on him like iron, yet he knew the dreams were no longer his own. The System had opened a new road: the power to plant whispers in sleeping minds, to twist doubts and fears until even dreams served him.
Outside his lodge, mothers sang mourning songs that cut sharper than any spear. Their voices threaded the night, braiding grief into a rope that might one day hang him.
And the System only purred.