Thorin's First Thundersday of Harvestfall, 1442, Inside the Gloam-Barrow Den.

The moment the party stepped inside the dungeon proper, Kaelyn felt the air changing.

It was colder—damp in a way that stuck to her stockings and settled into her bones. The soft blue light of the mycelium lining the ceiling above cast long shadows down the winding tunnel, the walls pulsing faintly with wet, root-choked veins of stone.

Her keen ears picked up the sound of mandibles clicking and hundreds of legs crawling somewhere in the surrounding darkness. The place probably swarmed with all sorts of corpse-feeders and gross maggots.

She did not hear Ryan shudder—but she felt it, like a tremor through the shared floor of their mind.

Happy to hang back and let someone else handle this place.

He did not elaborate. He did not need to. Even as a spectator, his discomfort clung to them—dysphoria humming under the skin like static. They could all feel the way he had just mentally flinched as a gust of cold air slipped beneath their robes.

Kaelyn laughed inside her mind. A low, throaty chuckle, like she was sipping a glass of Aigua de València in a velvet armchair.

Oh, chico. I've got this, she purred. Bugs don't scare me. I've dealt with far more lecherous things.

Ew, gross. I don't even want to know. That was the younger Kaelyn—the girl. The quieter one. The one who still sounded like a twenty-something waking up from a two-decade nap. Can I… can I maybe try? Not for the whole thing, just—maybe part of it? I want to do something this time.

There was a long pause.

Ryan stayed silent. He did not vote or interfere. His discomfort with their current form put him almost out of the equation.

The other Kaelyn huffed. Fine, gatita. I'll let you take the reins—as long as things stay slow. But the second you get overwhelmed, I'm jumping in. ¿Comprendida?

There was a moment of hesitation. Then…

Deal.

Their body adjusted with that mental handoff—shoulders relaxing, posture softening. No longer strutting or shrinking, just… present. The girl adjusted her grip on her brand-new staff—one of many gifts freely given by Elyssia. But this one felt different. More significant. She had been the one to accept it earlier.

With the weapon in hand, and for the first time in a while, she felt more than just a passenger.

However, her mood dropped almost immediately.

Does Elyssia even know I exist? She knows about Ryan—thanks to the news. And she knows us as Kaelyn—Ryan's character. But she doesn't—she can't—know about the girl who existed before the character. Before Kaelyn. Before all of this.

To Elyssia—to the rest of the party, really—there was only their party member. One with a simple designation: Kaelyn. A name that now stood for all three of them, one single label masking a chorus. A name stretched too thin. Like a continent pretending to be a country.

"Alright, team," Elyssia called ahead, rolling her shoulders with a loud snap. "I've got eyes on the first pack. It's going to be bugs. Giant ones, from the looks of it."

"Not helping," Vaelith muttered.

"More legs than sense," Leoric added, drawing an arrow and nocking it loosely.

Kaelyn squinted and then saw it.

A massive millipede, easily the length of a wagon, its chitin glistening in the pale fungus-light, uncurled from a crevice in the wall like a horrible coil of muscle and legs. It raised its front third and hissed, barbed pincers clicking as if tasting the air.

"I'm heading in," Elyssia announced.

She crouched low, inhaled—and a pulse of earthy brown light erupted from her fists. Her skin shimmered like baked clay, and ochre energy crackled along her tonfa and the soles of her feet.

Kaelyn recognised this as her tanking stance.

The ground cracked beneath her takeoff. One foot slammed into the millipede's side with a sickening whump, launching it down the corridor like a coiled spring gone wrong. It slammed into a knot of smaller bugs, scattering legs and mandibles like dice at a tavern table.

"Follow me!" she called over her shoulder, already sprinting into the gloom.

"Right behind you," Kaelyn shouted back, heart suddenly in her throat. She activated her Sprint ability and dashed after the tank.

"Let me know when to scatter them," Vaelith said, using her Blink ability to teleport near Elyssia. "I'm ready to blast them away from you whenever you need to."

Kaelyn grinned. She was so eager to show off to Vaelith her own knock-back trick. She was sure the mage would approve of the tactic—heck, she should even recognise the manoeuvre, given she played the game that inspired Elyssia to develop it.

"Let's see how good those poison arrows are," Leoric said, releasing arrows back to back into the enemies chasing Elyssia before shooting a teleporting arrow to catch up to the ground. "Might as well let the DoTs do their thing while we're kiting!"

Elyssia barrelled ahead, dragging a growing parade of angry insectoids behind her like a bride with the world's worst veil. The click and clatter of mandibles echoed off the stone—then changed pitch as something bipedal joined the chase.

"I see the first boss a little way ahead. Let's take out the trash before we say 'Hi', shall we?" Elyssia called. "Vaelith, I'm going to head to that corner," she pointed. "Can you help me get all the mobs against the wall?"

"Sure, no problem," the dracan shouted, still sprinting a little distance behind the train of crawling horrors.

Elyssia stopped, turned around, facing the incoming horde, and stomped a foot against the ground, a bunch of leaves lifting and floating around her ankles almost like small wings. "Popped Featherfoot."

Featherfoot could not block magic or area of effect attacks—but against mobs like these? Perfect evasion. It might as well be God mode.

This was Elyssia's way of telling Kaelyn she would not need any heals for the next fifteen seconds. And the priestess knew what this meant.

Green DPS time!

As soon as the swarm reached Elyssia and started striking at her with their stingers, mandibles and sharp legs, Vaelith positioned herself up slightly to one side, lined up her cone spell and unleased a fully-charged Telekinetic Blast.

A cacophony of sounds soon followed, a mix of the spell's thunderous detonation, and a chorus of giant bugs shrieking as they flew off.

Given they were close enough to the wall, the enemies did not travel the full knock-back distance, instead impacting against the surface, taking additional damage from her spell's special property.

Loaded as Vaelith was with augment stones, upgraded gear and food buffs, the attack combo took a pretty significant amount of damage out of the enemies—roughly a third of their health bar.

Now, gatita!

I know!

Kaelyn used her Blinding Speed ability to fly to Elyssia's position, confident the sylvani had already found the ideal spot for her. Brilliant angelic wings sprouted on her back as she sped past Vaelith, grinning in anticipation.

As soon as she felt her feet touch the ground, Kaelyn invoked her Sanctuary spell.

The dome of light appeared at her feet. Tiny, at first, barely the size of a marble. But it grew quickly, soon big enough to cover one person, and then to cover a party.

When the wall of light connected with the insects, a violent discharge of holy energy punished them for intruding upon sacred ground. A little over ten percent of the health vanished from each of the monsters.

Then, the game attempted to knock them back, but there was nowhere for them to go—they were already up against the wall.

Over several server ticks, the game repeated the process. Another ten percent life, another failed knock back attempt, the enemies still treading upon sacred ground. Repeated until the bugs stopped twitching altogether, liquefied under divine pressure.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The girl released the spell and stared at the fading light, her heart pounding. She had not expected it to work that well. Not like this. Not like… she belonged here.

Sanctuary, my ass. This spell is sancti-crush!

The chitinous shells of the giant bugs gave way to the pressure, and greenish blood oozed from the newly formed cracks that suddenly appeared all over their bodies.

Kaelyn grimaced and took a quick step back, boots splashing in the aftermath of the sanctified gore.

She turned back to look at her party's reaction.

Leoric stood there, utterly dumbfounded, and Vaelith remained still, one arm still held forward after having cast her spell.

"What the heck?" Leoric asked, his voice tinged with disbelief.

"Oh my stars, Elyssia! Was that…. Did Kaelyn really…? That was Nicole's shield exploit!" Vaelith's gaze darted from Elyssia to Kaelyn and then to the bugs.

"Yep!" Elyssia burst out laughing. "Well, that certainly was efficient."

"Efficient? That was such a hack! I barely did anything!" Leoric whined.

"Well, your turn will come," Elyssia said, shrugging. "—Because looks like from here onwards, we'll be fighting undead monsters. How many of those holy arrows did you make?"

"Over fifty," he answered, pouting.

"Well, it's going to be fun seeing you erase enemies one arrow at a time," she grinned.

"But seriously—using a defensive cooldown as a mega-nuke? That can't be intentional. You think the devs are gonna patch that?"

"If the previous version of the game is any indication of how things will go? Probably not," Elyssia said, adjusting the grip of one tonfa. "The only nerf they ever did to Holy spam was reducing spell potency slightly. They kept the game-breaking stun-lock that trivialised giant pulls."

"Luxoria-approved lazy balancing," Vaelith added cheerfully.

Kaelyn smiled, following the exchange with her gaze. But a small knot twisted in her chest.

She had barely said a word so far in the instance.

No funny quips, witty one-liners or jokes about divine overkill.

The other Kaelyn would have jumped in instantly. Would have claimed the kill, made a pun, flirted shamelessly. Or all three, really.

But she—the girl—was not her. Not right now.

She was quieter. Softer. Still unsure how to fit within this party, how to act like Kaelyn would. As if she were not the original Kaelyn.

He gave her my name. I held on to it for all these years. But now… it doesn't feel like mine anymore. It feels like hers.

Her eyes drifted past the others, drawn to the far side of the chamber—where a lone figure stood perfectly still, waiting just outside the aggro radius. Hands at her sides. Feet planted. Poised like a statue with a heartbeat.

It was the mini-boss. And she was waiting for them.

Standing in the centre of the chamber was a tall, broad-shouldered Full-Blood felinae. Her fur, once sleek, was now matted and patchy—black with streaks of sickly green. One of her eyes was clouded. The other burned with a dim golden glow.

She wore a half-shredded Umbraholme guardswoman's cuirass, the crest still barely visible beneath rot and grime. Her armour—and her entire body, truth be told—looked barely held together by thick stitches and lengths of dark cord, like a tapestry reassembled by someone desperate not to forget its shape.

Her twin shotels were crossed behind her back, polished and pristine, as if magically warded from the decay. Her tail swayed in slow, deliberate arcs behind her, like a pendulum measuring the space between life and duty.

At her feet lay a grim mosaic of severed limbs and ruined corpses—half-rotted, clawed, and reeking. A silent testament to battles fought and fought again, holding the line against the other undead clawing their way upward from the depths.

Even in undeath, she held vigil and protected this sacred site.

Kaelyn knew it instinctively—this was no longer a living being. But neither was it a monster. There was no malice, no twisted hunger that usually clung to the undeads like mildew.

This was not corruption. It was preservation.

But how?

Elyssia stepped forward, crossing the faintly glowing line etched into the stone—an invisible boundary delineating the edge of the boss' arena.

Leoric and Vaelith exchanged a look, then followed without a word.

The felinae shifted, just enough to reveal the long gashes across her side—wounds stitched with wire and care. She did not raise her blades. Not yet.

But she spoke in a soft, almost reverent, voice.

"His work is not done yet." A breath. "The living shall not enter. The dead shall not leave."

Then she unsheathed her blades with a hiss of steel and decay. She did not roar, posture or even issue a challenge. She just moved—silent as a dancer, deadly as a guillotine.

"Engaging," Elyssia said, using her Dash ability, appearing almost in a blur right in the statuesque acrobat's path.

The moment their weapons met, it was like watching a violent duet. Tonfa slammed into curved blades with thunderous rhythm—strike, block, retaliate. The acrobat's movements were too fast for a corpse. She flowed through each clash as if she still had breath in her lungs, stepping in and out of range with graceful precision, one blade parrying low while the other arced around in a feint meant to draw Elyssia off-balance.

Elyssia snarled, spinning low to duck a swipe, then brought one tonfa up to catch a downward slash. Sparks flew as enchanted wood met ancient steel. She twisted into a follow-up elbow strike—but the Acrobat dipped backward at the last moment, slipping under the blow like wind past a reed.

Kaelyn raised her staff, forcing down her awe and panic, and cast Holy Shield on Elyssia—a glowing dome wrapping around her briefly before sealing tight to her skin. She immediately followed it with Prayer, marking her with a shimmering sigil that would only bloom into a heal if needed.

Temporary hit points, and a reactive, dormant healing spell—her usual combination of pre-emptive healing.

"Let's see how those fare against her," Leoric muttered, taking aim from the flank.

His holy arrow streaked across the chamber in a line of radiant gold—only for the acrobat to twist with superhuman grace. One of her shotels snapped up mid-combo, catching the projectile against its edge. She did not stop her spin and instead used it to strike. In the same motion that sent the arrow flying off harmlessly, she stepped into a lunge, striking at Elyssia's side with the momentum of the parry.

"She has access to Deflect Missiles!" Elyssia shouted, gritting her teeth as the blow barely grazed her outer arm. "You'll have to shoot her from her rear, or she'll just keep swatting your arrows away!"

Leoric nodded, immediately pulling out one of his teleport arrows to reposition.

A flicker of violet light shimmered across the chamber—followed by five shrieking arcs of magic force, all fired in tight succession.

Vaelith's charged-up Telekinetic Blows struck squarely into the acrobat's chest—one, two, three—staggering her mid-motion and halting her deadly dance for the first time.

The fourth and fifth followed a beat later, slamming into her torso and pushing her a step back.

The acrobat reeled, her stance fractured just enough to give the party a dangerous burst of confidence.

Too much, maybe.

The sudden burst of damage flipped her attention instantly. Her head snapped toward Vaelith, her golden eye flaring like a struck match. Then she moved—a blur across the chamber, crossing the space in two teleport dashes. Her shotels were already mid-spin before her feet even touched the ground.

"Shit—she ignores aggro!" Elyssia barked, lunging after her.

"I've got her!" Leoric called out, loosing another holy arrow into the space just behind the acrobat's current path. A perfect angle. A sure hit.

But before the arrow could land, Vaelith knocked the boss away with a Telekinetic Blast, sending her tumbling—and Blinked herself into an empty, safer corner of the arena.

"Oh, come on!" the ranger groaned, blinking as the arrow zipped harmlessly through the vacant space.

"Dash's on cooldown—try not to move her too much!" Elyssia shouted, already sprinting to close the gap.

But before she could reach melee range, the acrobat vanished again—then reappeared right next to Vaelith.

"Shit…" Vaelith yelped, scrambling back, robes fluttering as she tried—and failed—to stay ahead of the whirling blades.

Kaelyn wanted to use her usual defensive spells to help mitigate the incoming damage, but both Holy Shield and Prayer were still on cooldown.

I've got to do something!

Her thoughts raced. Her hand tightened around her staff.

Hopefully she's out of charges for that stupid dance-step move of hers…

Kaelyn cast Pull of Light, grabbing hold of Vaelith with a radiant tether and yanking her across the arena like a celestial grappling hook.

The mage landed beside her with a small grunt. "Thanks," Vaelith panted.

Kaelyn applied a quick Regen to the mage, but would not linger to watch it run its course.

This boss was a pure physical attacker. Which meant her Blind debuff would cripple her ability to land hits.

Kaelyn activated her Blinding Speed ability. Wings of golden light burst from her shoulders as she flew across the field and slammed into the acrobat, tackling her mid-strike.

The spell detonated in a flash of divine brilliance, staggering the boss and tagging her with a five-second accuracy debuff.

The acrobat stumbled, blades slicing air instead of flesh.

Good thinking, gatita, the older Kaelyn said softly in her head. But looks like you're now top of the threat list. What now?

When Blind wears off, the girl thought, eyes locked on the still-staggered enemy, I'll just knock her away with Sanctuary…

Hopefully, someone will hit her hard enough before then.

Kaelyn's divine wings faded. She counted the five seconds. That's all the time she had bought for her team.

She heard Elyssia's footsteps closing in fast and felt the tension coiling tighter and tighter.

"Now!" Kaelyn shouted, invoking Sanctuary.

The holy dome bloomed outward from her staff, catching the acrobat at the moment her golden eye cleared. She recoiled as the divine energy lashed out, dealing another solid hit and attempting to knock her back.

Except there was nowhere to go—Kaelyn had positioned her perfectly, pinning her against the wall. A second pulse of damage hit, then a third.

The acrobat hissed through clenched fangs, her blades lashing out blindly through the radiant field—but each strike fell short or wide. Her precision was gone. Her rhythm, broken.

"Light her up, Lee!" Elyssia roared.

Leoric did not need to be told twice.

From the far side of the chamber, three holy arrows zipped across the field in rapid succession—one embedding into the boss's shoulder, the second grazing her hip, and the third striking true, right into her gut.

She lurched backward—straight into another series of Telekinetic Blows Vaelith had already unleashed. They hit like a hammer, lifting her a few inches off the ground before slamming her back into the wall.

Kaelyn stepped out of the dome, heart pounding, breathing fast.

And finally, Elyssia was right there with her.

The sylvani did not bother with fancy combos this time—she just charged, full-body, arms coiled like springs.

Her tonfa flared with fiery energy as she twisted her hips and slammed her full weight into the boss's centre of mass—a textbook Baji Quan tackle.

The impact sent a crack through the floor as the acrobat's form crumpled beneath the blow, her blades clattering from her hands as her back slammed into the stone with a final thud.

Silence followed. The glow in the undead felinae's golden eye dimmed. Her limbs went slack. The fight was over.

A faint shimmer of light passed over the room—the classic signal for dungeon combat end.

Kaelyn lowered her staff slowly, shoulders heaving with breath. "I… I think we got her," she said with relief.

"She was… guarding the exit," Vaelith murmured, frowning at the still body.

Elyssia knelt down beside the fallen felinae and gave a respectful nod.

"She was undead, but she wasn't corrupted," she said with reverence. "Just holding the line. Even in death."

"Don't you think she had pretty low hit points for a boss?" Lee asked.

"Yeah, I think she's meant to act as a tutorial for player-versus-player mechanics. This wasn't a tank-and-spank."

"Kind of a weird choice, though, for the first boss of the second dungeon," Vaelith said, frowning.

"Maybe. But now we know the pattern. Next time we run this place? We four-on-one her properly. It'll be over in seconds."

A treasure chest materialised near the opposite side of the arena. The rest of the party walked up to it, eager to see the contents.

Kaelyn, however, stood back a little. Her hands still grasped her staff so tightly it visibly trembled.

As Elyssia popped open the lid, she heard a voice.

His voice.

Hey. You did really good there, Kaelyn.

Thanks, Ryan.

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