Hollow Grove

The soft clatter of cutlery against mismatched ceramic filled the dimly lit dining room of the orphanage. There were only seven children now, all huddled close around the long wooden table. The wood bore new scars—blackened streaks where fire had licked at it during the raid, and a splintered groove down one leg where a goblin's jagged blade had once caught.

But still, they ate.

The stew was thin. Onions, potatoes, a single root of meat for flavor. But no one complained. Each child ate with the kind of gratitude that only those who'd seen death could manage. Cheeks hollowed but eyes wide—still fighting to hold light.

Koda sat at the end of the table, opposite the matron. His bowl had gone cold, but he kept his spoon in hand. He stirred absentmindedly, his eyes not on the food, but on Maia.

She was seated beside two of the youngest, helping the smallest girl scoop a spoonful to her mouth. Her hair was tied back in a loose braid, though a few golden strands slipped down her cheek. The blue in her eyes, usually soft and open, seemed dimmer now. Like the sky after a storm. Still beautiful. Still clear. But distant.

Her status had changed. Her name, too.

Maia of the Holy Mother.

Even here, in this quiet moment, her awakening sat like a small badge across her back. Her role was different now. Sacred.

And Koda? He sat in soiled borrowed cloths and wore no name at all.

The matron caught him watching and offered a tired smile. Her hair, once dark as coal, was streaked in white now. The goblins had broken her left arm and torn into her side, but she hadn't once let go of the makeshift shield she'd used to guard the children. Now her arm hung in a sling, her body braced by wrappings and stubbornness.

She stood to gather the empty bowls, grunting slightly as she moved. Koda rose quickly to help.

"You've done more than enough, boy," she said quietly. "Sit. They sleep better when you're near."

But he didn't sit. Instead, he stacked the bowls, careful not to clatter them, and brought them to the small counter near the sink. The room behind him was growing quiet now, the children's energy fading with the last light.

The matron turned her back to him, gently stroking one boy's head as he nodded off at the table. "You'll be gone soon too, won't you?" she asked, not looking back.

Koda froze, halfway to setting down the last bowl. "…What makes you say that?"

"You've got that look. Same one the older kids get right before they leave. Shoulders tight. Eyes somewhere else. The world's pulling at you, Koda. It always was."

He said nothing. Just finished with the dishes and offered a shallow bow of thanks, as he always did, before turning toward the hall.

⸻

The sky above Oria's outer ring had shifted from violet to deep indigo, stars now poking through a curtain of fog. The streets were quieter at this hour, though not dead. Candles flickered behind shuttered windows. Loose boards creaked under the feet of alley strays. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked twice and fell silent.

Koda moved fast, hood drawn up and cloak pulled tight. The paper was folded and hidden in his inner tunic, pressed against his chest like a second heartbeat.

The name haunted him: Hollow Grove.

He had searched for it all morning in the back corners of the library ruins and in whispered gossip between market stalls. Only the oldest shopkeep had claimed to remember. "An old temple…no longer blessed," they'd said with a half-smile. "Lost to rot. Abandoned when the gods closed the gates."

That temple, they claimed, lay beneath the ruins of a crumbling amphitheater at the city's edge. A place where prayers had long since died.

⸻

The streets thinned as he approached the Sleeping District—aptly named. Half its buildings were half-collapsed, slanted at odd angles, and the other half housed squatters too frightened to beg. The lamps here were dimmer, fewer, and far between. Moss crept up the stone walls like veins.

Koda passed a rusted gate, its hinges broken. Beyond it lay a wide circular descent—old stone stairs ringed a sunken courtyard. At its center rose the shattered ribs of what once must've been a beautiful hall. Its pillars had cracked and fallen in, lying like old bones across the floor. Ivy strangled the stone. The scent of wet dust and old wax filled the air.

There were no guards. No signs.

Only a silence that watched.

Koda stepped down carefully, each footfall muffled against the moss-covered stone.

At the bottom of the steps, he reached the blackened archway at the heart of the fallen temple. He paused. A breath. A check of his surroundings.

Then he entered.

The darkness inside greeted him like an embrace. Cold and ancient.

And in the center of that hollow sanctum, bathed in a shaft of pale moonlight through a broken dome—

He saw him again.

The cloaked figure.

Still hooded. Still silent.

But this time… waiting.

The figure did not move as Koda stepped into the sanctum. They stood beneath the moon's pale gaze, hands hidden beneath sleeves, face obscured by the cowl of shadow and a hood that seemed impossibly deep.

Silence stretched.

Only the wind spoke—slipping through cracks in the ruined ceiling, rustling through ivy and hanging dust like whispers of forgotten prayers.

"You're late," the voice came at last. Not cold. Not warm. A tone without weight. Genderless. Ageless. Spoken from somewhere just behind the darkness.

"I wasn't sure you'd actually be here," Koda replied, eyes narrowing as he stepped closer. "I didn't come to play games. I came for answers."

The figure tilted their head slightly, like a curious bird.

"Then you are unlike most who carry divine marks."

"I don't even know what that means," Koda snapped. "You handed me a code, an address, and disappeared. I nearly died during the outbreak, I—" He caught himself. Breathed. Slower. Steadier. "…I'm not like the others. My window… glitched. It gave me an error. You know something. I want the truth."

The figure's head bowed. For a moment, Koda wondered if they would answer at all.

"You are not broken," they said softly. "You are interrupted."

"…What does that mean?"

The figure stepped lightly through the stone dust, their robes dragging over scattered rubble. They gestured to the arch behind them—once holy, now blackened with soot. "This place was once a branch of the Old Order. A temple for balance. Long before the churches built marble altars to gods they could no longer hear."

Koda's brow furrowed. "You're saying the churches are… wrong?"

"No," the figure said, pausing. "They are narrow. Limited in scope. Their gifts come through the system… but they do not remember the architect. They confuse inheritance with authority."

"And you?"

The cloaked head dipped once more. "We are the stewards of memory. The Order does not kneel to the Four, nor the Eternal. We remember the world before heaven closed. We remember the first outbreak. We remember the bargain made to give mankind strength."

They took a slow step toward Koda now, though never fully into the light. "When the Eternal Guide sealed the gate to heaven… it was not to abandon us. It was to buy us time. Time to grow. To evolve. But it was not a clean parting."

Koda's breath caught. "The second invasion…"

The figure nodded. "The system was compromised. Fractured in small, almost imperceptible ways. Portals now open not to buried dungeons… but to foreign planes. Some tethered to life. Others to death. Some to far worse."

They raised a single gloved hand—and the mark of a blackened hand, faintly glowing, pulsed beneath the sleeve.

"We believe you are the first evidence that the system is healing itself. That the will of the Eternal is moving again. Not through command… but through choice."

Koda's heart beat faster, loud in his ears.

"You're saying… the error… was the system adapting to me?"

"Perhaps," the figure said. "Or perhaps it was you adapting to the system. A mirror reflecting a broken god. A reset. A spark."

"…Then why did everyone else see me as broken?"

"Because no one listens to silence," the figure said, voice nearly a whisper now. "Only to the loudest choir. But divinity… divinity always begins in the quiet. Just as it did once before."

They took another step back, retreating again into the shadows.

"We will not interfere. Not yet. The churches watch you now, wary but uncertain. Do not give them a reason to name you heretic. Let them doubt. Let them whisper. It is in the silence between that your truth will grow."

Koda clenched his fists. "You said you wouldn't interfere, but you want something. What is it?"

A pause.

Then: "To see if the child of error… becomes the man of order."

And before Koda could respond—before another question could burn through his throat—the figure lifted one hand and vanished behind the veil of shadows and smoke.

Only silence remained.

And a single object left behind on the cracked stone where they once stood:

A thin, jet-black shard. No bigger than a coin. Warm to the touch. Pulsing faintly with a rhythm that was not his own.

Koda stared at the shard left behind on the ancient stone. It didn't shimmer like metal. It drank the light. Devoured it. The cracked floor around it looked like it was wilting, the stones greying with frostless death. And yet—he felt no fear. Only pull. An ache, low and slow, in his chest. A resonance.

He reached down.

The air around his fingers trembled—so faintly it could be mistaken for nerves—but as his skin brushed the shard's surface, it pulsed. Once.

Thump.

Like a second heartbeat—smaller, sharper—echoing inside his palm.

The shard dissolved. Not crumbled. Not cracked. It simply ceased to be. A mist of ink spilling upward, vanishing in a hiss into his skin. A mark was left behind only for a blink, like wet ink fading into parchment—a ring of tiny black script that hovered above his palm before vanishing too.

The silence in the grove shifted.

Koda gasped—eyes wide as his vision shimmered.

[STATUS WINDOW – EXPANDED ACCESS GRANTED]

[SKILL GRID UNLOCKED]

[INITIAL SELECTION AVAILABLE]

A cascade of silver light, familiar yet refined, bloomed before him. The status window shimmered into view—but different now. It hummed with intention. The strange, fractured lines of code that once screamed ERROR had reorganized. His name still glowed faint and gray, his patron now revealed in gilded font where once there had been none.

——-

Koda of the Eternal Guide

Level 2

HP: 60 / 60

Mana: 60/60

Stamina: 60/60

Stats:

Strength: 6 Vitality: 6 Agility: 6 Intelligence: 6 Wisdom: 6 Endurance: 6

Trait: [Balance] – Divine Class

Any increase in one stat is mirrored across all others. Harmony guides the whole.

[SKILL GRID AVAILABLE]

Select Your First Skill: 1 / 1 Available Slot

Three icons shimmered in formation. Unlike the grid systems the public was used to—geometric and clean—these were living things. Symbols etched in flowing script that shifted and rearranged when stared at directly.

Koda reached out with his will, not his hand.

The first icon pulsed:

[Anchor the Self] – Passive

Your mind cannot be touched by outside will. Illusions, madness, fear spells, and divine pressure are reduced or nullified. The center holds.

The second shimmered like heat on sand:

[Blade of Conviction] – Active

Summon a weapon forged of pure will. The more clarity and purpose you hold, the stronger the blade. Willpower and Wisdom affect damage.

The third breathed like a living book:

[Silent Doctrine] – Passive

Gain insight when observing systems or skills not your own. Can see hidden links between gifts, and slowly learn forgotten truths.

——-

He staggered back a step, heart pounding again. Each option called to something deep within him. Like they already knew him.

And just beyond the ruined arch, hidden within a veil of overgrowth and shadow, the cloaked figure watched with unmoving intensity. Though his face remained hidden, his posture had shifted. One shoulder bowed lower. Not in humility.

In recognition.

This was the proof the Order had waited for.

Not prophecy fulfilled—potential confirmed.

He did not whisper into the wind. He made no move to reveal himself again. He only watched as the child of ash and silence took the first step down a path older than memory.

Back in the hollowed heart of the grove, Koda raised his hand.

And chose.