— Why did you remove the wanted posters from the city, Estephan?! Are you mad? Did that demon contaminate you too?!

Katarina entered the governor's office with the fury of a storm, pushing past the guards with just her fierce gaze. Rumors that she was incompetent in capturing the Unpronounceable began to spread in the city, and she was one step away from freaking out once and for all.

— There are important things being taken into account when making this decision. — He spoke without even looking at his sister. — You don't have to worry about that anymore.

— Are you serious? You're letting the world's biggest threat run free and I don't have to worry?

Estephan Evelot was a fair man above all else. He had learned to identify people's intentions throughout his life being prepared to rule, and when he met Darka at the tower's renovation, what he saw was just a young man who was excited, kind and wanting to help however he could, much like his beloved daughter, Daena. Someone honest and sincere enough to listen to some rants from an old man about missing his wife. Estephan knew that this informal treatment was because he didn't know about his position, and was happy to have kept it a secret. When Darka supposedly destroyed the tower, he felt betrayed by both the young man and his intuition, which had apparently failed him for the first time, causing him to doubt his own ability to rule. But upon hearing Daena saying that it wasn't his fault and that it was a setup, his intuition shouted back as loud as it could, saying "I told you so." Upon meeting Darka again talking about his innocence, Estephan decided to believe him.

— Katarina. — He stood up, now looking into her eyes. — I'm not going to say this as the leader of the province and your superior, but rather as your older brother. I know what I'm doing and I need you to trust me.

—What do you mean by that, Estephan?

— From today onwards I will be responsible for any act of the Unpronounceable committed within the territory of Oenith. Notify the guards.

— What?! But...

— You are dismissed. — He interrupted her.

That was the last straw for the paladin. Her own brother siding with the enemy, most likely under the influence of Daena, who Katarina was now absolutely certain had been mentally manipulated. She just turned and left the office, already making her way straight to the castle library.

As a descendant of the great hero of the past, since her childhood Katarina had been taught to fight for justice and the well-being of everyone. With her brother's responsibility defined as commanding the province, it was up to her to be the representation of people's hope, and the heroine who would free everyone from the great evil. But the evil she had been taught to fight was a witch who had almost destroyed the world once and would return one day to finish what she started. As a child, she was chosen to be the bearer of an ancient goddess from another continent called Tharia, receiving divine powers in exchange for her own soul. All of her ancestors followed the same process, and for her it would be no different. She just accepted everything as her destiny and was conditioned to follow it religiously, so seeing her family allying itself with the thing she dedicated her life to destroying was like a knife in the chest.

The library was empty as usual, silent as a tomb. Katarina knew exactly what she was looking for, heading straight to the official documents and historical records section. That's where all the information about Yrina's emergence and what she did about 100 years ago was.

The great witch Yrina rose from the lands beyond the West, Fearaniar, bringing disasters and misfortune. Her magic destroyed villages and devastated plains, for the simple pleasure of destroying. She was a hellish creature whose purpose was chaos. Thanks to Garion Blackbell's leadership, the province of Ingrena was the first to identify her attacks and team up with Ninell and Oenith to stop her, and the siege against her quickly closed.

Katarina was leafing through the books that she had already read dozens of times, looking for something more, some hint that she had missed and that might be the key to preventing Yrina's return. She stopped at a section describing the events of the day she was sealed.

The witch cast lightning on the ancient capital of Ninell province, Jhotar. Wherever she went, houses collapsed and the ground cracked, breaking the city into pieces, but the people managed to escape before the peak of her rage. Her goal was the square in the center of the capital, where she would use her power to spread her fury throughout the world. Using her own son as a sacrifice, she conjured a great magic circle that was intended to summon chaos itself, but was stopped by the great paladin Angelus Aurea. With the help of the power received by his protective deity, he destroyed the unholy circle, overturned the earth itself with a tornado of colossal proportions and sealed Yrina before she finished her ritual, burying her along with the rubble of the destroyed city.

Where once the majestic city of Jhotar now stands a mountain that hides the remains of Yrina and her son. Angelus discovered that the magic she was trying to conjure fed on ancient magical flows that converged at that location and spread underground like roots, so he decided to use the witch's own weapon against her. Tracking down specific points in said streams in the three great provinces, he obstructed the streams with four divine seals to prevent her from using concentrated magic to escape.

Angelus Aurea was Katarina's ancestor, and reading about his great heroism made her feel a mixture of pride and a sense of responsibility. She needed to be like him.

Little is known about Yrina's sacrificial victim, her unnamed son whose body has not been found. But it is feared that he could return together with the witch to once again destroy the world. To prevent this from happening, the four seals of Angelus must be protected at all costs.

By now, she knew that three of the said seals had already been destroyed: The one in Talphen's tower, the one in Norien's library, and the one in Raven's Ruin. The whereabouts of the latter were unknown and it was believed that it had even moved after a few years.

Katarina closed the books, frustrated. She only had to go after the last seal and protect it, but no one knew where it was.

— I don't know where it is... — She stammered. — But there is someone who does.

✰★✰★✰

— Mr. Darka, we are arriving!

— Hmm. — The young man, sleeping on his back, barely moved. He slept like a log, despite the rocking of the covered wagon that took them the last ten kilometers to Caadis. The driver didn't seem to notice the stowaways, or if he did, he decided to simply ignore them.

— Well, if you're going to stay asleep, I'll join you. Excuse me! — Miko snuggled on top of Darka, hugging his neck and resting his head awkwardly on their friend's cheek.

Miko immediately began rubbing their face against his friend's, in an unconscious attempt to soften their "pillow".

— Hmm... — Darka mumbled again. The friction from Miko's scales started to bother him, to the point where he finally opened his eyes. — Oh... Miko... that stings!

Miko raised their head to look at their friend. Darka stared boredly, his cheek red.

— Are you awake, Mr. Darka?! Okay, I wasn't sleepy anyway! — Miko got off the young man and lifted part of the wagon's cover to point towards the city. — Oh, and we arrived in Caadis!

— Oh, great. This was the longest trip I've ever taken in this blessed game. — Darka sat and stretched, trying to shake off the tiredness and pain.

— What game, Mr. Darka? — Miko questioned.

— In the game of life, my dear Miko. The worst game ever made. Beautiful graphics, but terrible gameplay. Anyway, we can rest here today and head to Olsid tomorrow morning.

Carefully getting off the wagon, they entered the city without any problems. Unlike the capitals, small cities like that didn't have much protection and even Darka's fame wasn't a reason to worry so much, after all they had other more urgent problems to deal with than a supposed demon destroying things there.

The main street of Caadis followed the same layout as the rest of the cities and housed a large market, but instead of exotic fruits and luxurious carpets, the stalls sold metal parts, machinery things and tools for mechanic services. Darka remembered some missions he did for Amara that involved going to this same market to buy items, and the memory of it made his chest tighten.

"Maybe it's time to start thinking about plan B, in case Amara has really changed his mind about me.", Darka thought as he walked, so distracted that he didn't even notice when he got separated from Miko. The only thing that took him out of his thoughts was the sight of someone familiar passing by a few meters ahead, in the middle of the confusion of tents. A pink hair tied into a bun.

— A... Amara?!

Darka tried to make his way to him, but once he reached the place where he had seen Amara there was no sign of anyone.

— Maybe it was just an impression...

A hand rested on his shoulder. He turned around hoping to see his beloved friend, but came face to face with a mask with a moon symbol on it.

— It's good to see you again, my lord!

— Noite?! — Darka's expression closed. His first instinct was to jump on his neck, but he ended up giving up because he didn't want to attract too much attention. — What are you doing here? If you're going to cause trouble using my name again, I'm going to choke you right now.

— Not at all, my lord. I just wanted to talk to you, now that you've discovered us. I believe the time has come to review the steps of Lady Yrina's resurrection.

Darka pulled Noite by the collar to an empty alley nearby. He wanted to come clean with both of them, yes, but he felt like it wouldn't be that easy. The fact that they were characters whose existence had absolutely no trace in the game left Darka very uneasy and with the feeling that they didn't fit right into it all.

— I'll be direct, kid. I don't want to bring Yrina back. I never wanted to bring her back. I'm not bringing her back. So I want you to stop doing things for me, this is just screwing me up. Do you understand what I'm saying?

— I understand, my lord. But know that you're only acting like this because you doesn't remember. We are just helping to fulfill what Lady Yrina wanted from the beginning.

— Who are you to know what she wanted? I may have a bad memory, but I remembered a lot and none of them are about you two! Where the hell did you guys come from?

Talking to someone wearing a mask always made Lauren nervous. Not being able to know the person's reaction or whether they were even looking at you was almost distressing. After a somewhat long pause, Noite lowered his head.

— We are brothers, my lord. It hurts me a little that you don't remember. But don't worry, we have no hard feelings about it. We know that the amnesia process resulting from your resurrection ended up erasing very important things.

Darka looked more confused than ever. There was definitely nothing about Yrina's other children in the game and that made more and more questions pop into his head.

— Okay, look, I still don't know who you are, because as far as I know, Yrina didn't have any children. But anyway, I want you to stop this resurrection nonsense.

— But there's only one seal left, and we're on top of it.

— What?

— It was very smart of you to come straight to it. This time we don't even need to have brought you here with missions and rumors! Your intuition is admirable.

— I didn't...

— It's in the water gallery somewhere below the market. We can also take advantage and tear down the city's structures, so everyone will see the grandeur of your power and what you are capable of. We will begin the destruction process at your command.

— I just said that I don't want...

— Don't worry about the preparations, my lord! — interrupted Noite, jumping towards the roofs of the alley. — Dia and I will get started as soon as possible!

Darka just watched the young man disappear between the buildings, frustration growing by the second. Caadis was built over a vast gallery of canals through which the River Marue passed, and if they decided to break the seal in the same way they broke Talphen's tower, half the city would go down the river.