Loki spent the night at an inn in the town. The walls were made out of thin slabs of wood, so Loki could feel it clearly, the world outside made no sound, no wind against the window, no creaking timber, not even footsteps from the rooms beside him. The silence pressed against his ears. And whenever he closed his eyes, he felt watched.
Loki had already figured it out, his instincts were screaming at him because of his Child of Mysteries attribute, he couldn't put it into words but if he had to explain how he felt, it'd be the feeling of death coming closer the longer he stayed in this town.
It was a madness-inducing feeling.
When dawn finally came, the gray light filtering through the window felt more like reprieve than comfort. Loki rose slowly from the bed, joints stiff from tension rather than rest. The cat sat on the windowsill, staring out into the fog-softened streets with its back arched ever so slightly.
Loki dressed, gathered himself, and stepped outside. The town in daylight was almost picturesque. Fog crawled along the ground, drawing soft outlines around houses and trees. Candles flickered in windows. A woman swept her doorstep with steady, even strokes. A pair of children ran across the square laughing, their voices bright and perfectly synchronized, almost too synchronized.
A man waved at Loki. The motion was friendly, harmless. Yet the attribute pulsed again, like a cold drop falling on the back of his neck. Loki forced a polite half-smile and kept walking.
As he moved through the marketplace, the signs accumulated not overwhelming but still bizarre and slightly....off.
A baker arranged loaves with unnatural symmetry. A butcher wiped a knife clean of blood Loki hadn't seen spilled. A dog dozed beside a fence, chest rising and falling, but its eyes were open and unmoving. A child hummed a tune with no variation in pitch or breath.
Small things, Minute irregularities. The kind of details only someone with Loki's attribute or someone deeply paranoid might notice.
Observing all this Loki's pulse quickened. The cat stayed close to his ankles, tail low, fur lifted along its spine. The longer Loki observed, the more the small defects sharpened into something unmistakable:
These people were not behaving as people should.
He realized then, abruptly and with full clarity, that staying in the town any longer was a mistake. A fatal one. He turned away without hesitation and made for the forest path. Loki was prepared to make a run for it if some called for him or tried to stop him but no such thing happed. Before long he was back in the forest.
The fog thickened behind him, swallowing the houses as though the town were exhaling and pulling the mist inward. Loki didn't look back.
His boots sank into damp leaves as he crossed the tree line. The forest air struck him cool, heavy, natural in a way the town had not been. The trees bent gently under the weight of morning droplets. Birds cawed in the distance. Branches swaying overhead.
Everything felt more alive.
Everything felt more real.
His attribute, so restless in the town, quieted to a faint hum. Not gone but gentler.
Loki finally let out a shaky breath. "Okay… good decision."
The cat meowed quietly in agreement.
He kept walking, deeper into the woods. Not out of bravery but out of instinct. Something inside him insisted that this direction was safe. So trusting himself he kept waking.
Nearly an hour passed before Loki noticed human signs along a narrow off-trail path, snapped twigs, shallow footprints, the remnants of snare lines. Loki followed these signs, the cat following behind him quietly.
Eventually Loki found something, hidden between fir trees and moss covered stones stood a rough wooden workshop. A single room structure with a slanted roof and smoke rising from a small chimney. Skinned hides hung drying on a line. Iron traps lay disassembled on a workbench. A battered door rested slightly ajar.
As Loki approached, it creaked open.
An old man stepped out.
His presence stopped Loki cold.
He was tall, wiry, wrapped in a long faded coat patched at the elbows. A hunting spear rested casually in one hand. His eyes cold, sharp, and quietly appraising looked Loki up and down without a word.
The cat at Loki's heel stiffened. Not in fear, in attention.
Loki's attribute remained still.
The man was dangerous. His aura prickled with violence and sharp instinct…but he felt human. Not like the people in the town. The hunter spoke first.
"You're not theirs."
Loki swallowed. "I… hope not."
The hunter stared, the went back inside "Come in." he said.
Loki stayed still for a while, then followed the man inside.
----
The workshop was cluttered but clean, filled with the scent of smoke and steel. Tools hung from the walls. Shelves overflowed with jars of sap and dried herbs. Slips of parchment bearing crude maps lay scattered across a table.
The hunter gestured for Loki to sit on a wooden stool while he poured water into a tin cup.
"Drink."
Loki drank. His throat loosened a bit.
After a moment, the hunter said, "Tell me."
Loki hesitated. "About what?"
The hunter's gaze did not waver. "You're shaken. And you came running from that town. What did you see?"
Loki lowered the cup.
"I didn't see anything." Loki replied.
The hunter's brow rose.
Loki continued, "Everyone there… they behaved almost too normally."
The hunter's eyes darkened. "Almost."
Loki stared into the cup. As if thinking about something.
"My instincts kept warning me, so i left." Loki said.
The hunter murmured something under his breath.
Loki remained silent, he couldn't just tell the hunter about his attributes, he couldn't trust him, the hunter probably didn't trust Loki either. Loki felt the hunter was only accommodating because he could kill Loki quite easily, the only reason Loki had told the old man about his instincts was to see if the old man would let his guard down a little or maybe find Loki useful. Loki had already realized the old man was likely an Awakened, it was better to use this old man as a shield and stay far away from the town until he could figure things out.
The hunter stayed silent for a while. Then he walked to the workbench and pulled down a cloth covering an object, a curved blade with runes etched faintly along its spine.
"You're not from around here are you. There's something vile happening in that town" he said. "The people had changed long before you arrived."
Loki felt a chill crawl up his spine. "What kind of change?"
"Desire," the hunter said simply. "Their worst impulses twisted into habit."
Loki gripped his knees. "A Nightmare Creature?"
"Most likely" the hunter said.
He then looked at Loki as if weighing something. "Stay here. You walk back into that town now, you die."
Internally Loki had already agreed to stay but he still pretended to hesitate a little, finally agreeing after a moment of thought.
----
The days that followed were strange.
The Hunter had for some reason started teaching him, at first Loki felt weird but seeing as the hunter didn't say anything Loki got over it and started learning what he could. The Hunter didn't speak much, but when he did, Loki listened. The man taught by demonstration, showing Loki the correct way to grip a spear, by pointing silently where his foot should land to avoid snapping twigs, by showing him how to pack a crude explosive from sap resin, mineral powder, and a metal casing scavenged from traps. Loki learned quickly.
The cat followed him in every lesson, sometimes jumping onto tree branches above them, sometimes weaving between Loki's legs.
One night, as they sat near the hearth, Loki asked, "Why are you helping me?"
The hunter stared into the fire.
"You know the truth about the town, why haven't you left? " he asked.
Loki could only stare into the fire.
----
Loki along with The Hunter moved through the forest in wide arcs, checking old animal trails and abandoned clearings. With each passing day, they found more anomalies.
A deer whose limbs bent in wrong angles antlers growing out of it's eyes, skin pulled tight over its skull. A bird with too many joints in its wings, beating the air with sickening fluidity. A fox whose pupils were vertical slits, its teeth too long, too needle-like .All of them behaving like puppets tugged by invisible strings.
The hunter put them down swiftly and without hesitation.
Loki learned how to fight under pressure, he couldn't use his aspect in a fight, so he relied on his body, a shift of weight, a change of momentum, a push that prevented death by inches.
After one particularly close encounter with a corrupted boar whose tusks twisted like roots, the hunter glanced at him.
"You adapt quickly," he said.
Loki wiped sweat from his chin. "Trying not to die is a strong motivator."
To Loki's surprise, the hunter snorted a sound that might have been a laugh in a different life.
----
On on eventful day, Loki and the hunter followed a trail deeper into the forest. The cat stopped suddenly, fur stiff, tail swollen. It hissed toward a hollow log.
"Something's inside," Loki murmured.
The hunter nodded. "Back."
But Loki didn't back up quickly enough. A raccoon its eyes black pits, its body covered in ash colored mushrooms, its paws elongated like claws lunged out. Before Loki could even raise his hands, the cat slammed into the creature, knocking it aside. Before the hunter could finished it with a quick stab. The cat lunged at the racoons throat, ripping it apart with a sharp tug.
[Your Echo has slain a dormant beast, Blighted Racoon.]
The spells voice rang in Loki ear as he stared at the cat.
The hunter also stared at the cat.
Loki didn't know what to say.
The cat simply sat proudly, licking its paw.
----
Every corrupted trail, every mutated animal, every unnatural growth had one thing in common they all pointed to the town. The hunter squatted beside a patch of dirt, touching it with the butt of his spear.
"It's spreading," he said.
Loki's stomach twisted. "So we need to destroy it?"
The hunter gave him a slow, measured look. "I've tried. I've cut roots, burned saplings, collapsed dens." He shook his head. "None of it mattered. The source remains."
"Where?"
The hunter tapped the map. A small circle marked the town.
The hunter taught Loki techniques quickly, too quickly for them to be anything but preparation for something imminent. How to ignite sap bombs even when wet. How to lure creatures with sound. How to gauge the movement of townsfolk from the forest's quiet.
At night, they sat beside the fire. The hunter sharpened blades. Loki sorted powders. The cat slept between them, warm and steady.
For the first time since entering the Nightmare, Loki felt something like direction. Purpose. A path forward. But that comfort was thin, fragile. Because every night, Loki saw the same distant glow through the trees the faint lantern light of the town. And the longer he stayed away, the brighter it seemed.
The hunter stood one evening, staring into the darkness.
"It's started," he said.
Loki's hand tightened around the cat.
"What has?"
"The town," the hunter murmured. "They've noticed us."
Loki felt his breath catch. The hunter looked at him, truly looked.
"You've survived longer than anyone I've met," he said. "You learn fast. And you have seen the truth." A pause "When the time comes, you'll have to decide what kind of man you want to be."
Loki wanted to curse, if he were given a choice he would never want to face whatever was inside that town, the town could go to hell for all Loki cared. But he didn't because he already knew he'd have to face this someday, so stared at the fire quietly, saying nothing.