As William wove his way through the thick underbrush, the baby Owlbert stayed close at his side, clinging to him as its only hope for survival rather than braving the perilous wilds alone, especially with the woods teeming with murderous goblins.
Before long, the unlikely pair reached the goblin-infested river town, where Owlbert, feeling the weight of countless ravenous eyes upon its soft, feathery form, chirped in terror and pressed itself against William's thigh, trembling uncontrollably.
"The goblins must have been merciless when they killed its mother!" William thought, recalling how in Baldur's Gate 3, ignoring the owlbear mother led to the grim discovery of her brutal slaughter at the hands of goblins.
With a gentle hand, he stroked Owlbert's head to soothe it, only to be momentarily overcome by the downy softness of its feathers, his head leaning back in pure, unexpected bliss at the comforting sensation.
The goblin's gaze clung to William for a heartbeat too long. Not with curiosity, nor with awe, but with raw, hungry appetite.
Out of the corner of his eye, William caught the way those jaundiced, unblinking eyes followed the gentle rise and fall of Owlbert's chest.
The creature's grin stretched wider, revealing jagged, stained teeth, while its fingers curled and flexed in anticipation as it crept forward through the sucking mud, each step slow and deliberate.
Owlbert gave a frail chirp, pressing himself tighter against William's leg, feathers fluffed in alarm as though he might vanish into him for safety.
William did not turn, did not reach for the dagger at his belt, and did not break stride. Instead, he allowed a thin thread of magic to slip from his grasp.
Prestidigitation responded like an eager accomplice.
By a crumbled wall behind them, a decaying water bucket began to tremble, unnoticed amid the goblins' raucous laughter, pebble-throwing, and loud bickering over stolen drinks.
With a subtle flick of two fingers, William sent it hurtling.
The bucket struck the back of the advancing goblin's skull with a wet, ringing crack, bursting into a spray of water, splinters, and indignity.
"OI, WHO DID THAT?!"
Another goblin burst into raucous laughter. One gave him a shove, and a third inexplicably took offense on behalf of no one at all.
In an instant, the Blighted Village erupted into chaos, fists flying, bottles shattering against cold stone, and a chair leg swinging like a crude club.
Someone howled accusations of cheating, while another answered with teeth.
William sprang into motion, clutching Owlbert tightly to his chest as he wove through the bedlam like a shadow, boots splashing through filthy mud while goblins turned on each other with wild, gleeful fury.
The cacophony dimmed behind him as he slipped beyond the crumbled archway at the village's edge, only for something to swell suddenly within him.
Not pain, but pressure, a taut, surging tension winding through his chest and spine, as if raw energy was drawn too tightly beneath his skin.
His breath caught; the edges of his vision swam.
Deep in his mind, the Blessing stirred, curious, untroubled.
Owlbert hooted in alarm.
William stumbled, heart hammering.
"What is..?"
Chime.
A translucent blue pane blinked into existence before his eyes.
SYSTEM UPDATE
Experience Gained:
+110 XP
+90 XP
+160 XP
+180 XP
The numbers surged upward in a rapid cascade, stacking higher and higher until...
LEVEL UP!
Level 2 Achieved.
In an instant, the suffocating pressure evaporated.
The low hum cut out abruptly, leaving the air startlingly still.
William let out a sharp breath, his knees trembling as a gentle warmth spread through his limbs, not a sudden burst, but a steady, grounding force, like fresh strength slotting perfectly into place.
The shimmering window dissolved from view.
He stood just beyond the Blighted Village, the cool forest air brushing against his skin, Owlbert nestled securely in his arms.
"…Okay," William murmured, voice tinged with awe and lingering unease. "That explains the sudden pressure."
Owlbert gave a soft chirp and nuzzled into his collar.
Behind them, the distant chaos of the village swelled, goblin voices rising in inventive, ear-splitting ways as their brawl reached strange and spectacular new heights.
The din of the Blighted Village ebbed slowly, goblin cries and the crash of debris fading into a distant, harsh echo swallowed by the encroaching forest.
William kept his pace until the track constricted and the trees thinned, the air cooling as it dipped toward a shallow ravine.
From the murk ahead, a bridge emerged, ancient stone, cracked and uneven, stretching over a sluggish stream that crept beneath like some wounded thing unwilling to die.
At its entrance lay a clutter of abandoned carts, partially blocking the way, as if their owners had fled mid-journey and never returned.
William hesitated. Something about the scene was wrong.
The carts were not toppled by chance, nor neatly plundered; they appeared discarded, abruptly forsaken, as though life here had been interrupted mid-breath.
Clothing lay strewn across splintered boards, cloaks ground into the mud, tunics hardened with old blood and rain.
A cracked chest had spilled a scattering of books, their swollen pages warped, and ink bled into shadowy blurs.
Food rotted where it sat, apples collapsed into brown pulp, and bread was overtaken by pale mold. Owlbert gave a soft chirp, unease ruffling his feathers.
Adjusting the cub in his arms, William stepped onto the bridge, boots crunching over grit and broken wood.
Below, the stream gurgled thick and slow, laced with the faint metallic tang of decay.
At the farthest cart, he froze.
A body was slumped against its wheel.
A tiefling lay before him, young, judging by the short, smooth horns curling back just enough to mark the earliest years of adulthood.
His skin, once a rich, deep crimson, had faded to a dull, waxen hue in death.
Yet it was not the stillness of the corpse that made William's stomach knot, but the deliberate destruction visited upon it.
The tiefling's back was a grotesque landscape of torn flesh, as if claws had raked, pulled, and ripped with calculated malice.
Deep gouges ran from shoulder to hip, the skin peeled away to expose the raw layers of muscle and bone beneath.
Several ribs jutted outward at sharp angles, broken from within, suggesting his chest had been crushed while life still lingered.
It was no clean kill, no swift end, but an act of prolonged torture.
William crouched with deliberate care, mindful of where his hands fell.
The body was still fresh; blood had darkened but not yet blackened.
Owlbert, the cub nestled against his chest, went utterly still, golden eyes locked on the corpse with an instinctive recognition that something here was deeply wrong.
William's gaze swept the ground: drag marks, scuffed boot prints, goblin tracks overlaying heavier ones, all telling of a struggle that had concluded at the bridge's edge.
Perhaps it was meant as a warning, or simply a cruel indulgence.
Jaw tightening, he felt the forest close in, trees leaning inward as their branches wove shadows into watchful shapes.
Even the murmuring stream seemed hushed, as though it too understood the gravity of silence.
William lingered beside the wrecked cart, his gaze tracing the brutal slashes marring the tiefling's back.
Goblins were cruel, that much was undeniable; they reveled in suffering as children reveled in noise.
Yet this… this bore a different mark.
It felt intentional.
Personal.
He swallowed, and an unwelcome thought slid into his mind: was this the work of goblins, or the Dark Urge?
A force that, at this very moment, should have been stalking some hapless woodland creature, not carving ominous warnings into the dead.
Against his chest, Owlbert shifted, releasing a soft, questioning chirp.
William stiffened. "No," he muttered quietly, more to himself than to the cub. "Not going down that spiral." With a sharp shake of his head, scattering the thought like ash, he rose.
Whatever had done this, the dead were owed more than idle paranoia.
He moved on, crossing away from the bridge before dread could anchor itself.
The forest path narrowed and split.
William slowed.
Before him, a fork in the road radiated unease.
The left trail wound naturally deeper into the woods, its trees spaced evenly, the undergrowth worn back by years of passage.
The right, however, terminated abruptly at a sheer cliff face, its stone concealed by moss, heavy vines, and creeping ivy draped like a living shroud.
There was no obvious track, no visible entrance, yet something about it drew his attention.
He stopped.
Waited.
He did not have to wait long.
Hurried, uneven footsteps thundered from the left-hand trail, breaking the tense stillness.
From the shadows emerged four human adventurers, battered and bloodied, their wild eyes betraying a harrowing escape.
Dented and cracked armor clung to them like weary shells; one man pressed trembling fingers against his side as crimson seeped through, while another leaned on a spear snapped near the haft, his weight dragging it deeper into the mud.
They looked nothing like triumphant heroes, more like desperate survivors who had clawed free from the maw of something monstrous and unrelenting.
William barely warranted a glance as the leader, driven by sheer force of will, lurched toward the vine-choked cliff, shoving through brambles and sucking mire.
"Oi!" he roared hoarsely, voice fraying with exhaustion, "Open the bloody gate!" William knew that tone, arrogant, desperate, sustained only by momentum.
"Zevlor!" Aradin bellowed, cupping his hands, "Zevlor, it's Aradin! We made it back!"
The vines above stirred, and a tiefling emerged from the greenery, horns sweeping back, eyes widening at the sight below.
"Aradin?" Zevlor's voice sharpened with alarm. "By the Hells… where are the others?"
Aradin staggered forward, arms spread in a gesture of helpless defeat. "Dead! Taken! I don't know! We ran!"
Zevlor's jaw clenched as his gaze swept over the wounded group, counting and recounting, searching for faces that would never appear.
The forest was the first to respond.
Branches splintered and cracked behind them, sharp and sudden.
High, shrill laughter scraped through the undergrowth like blades dragged over stone.
William spun just in time to see a goblin patrol burst from the shadows of the trees, brandishing crude weapons, their yellowed fangs gleaming in feral, eager grins.
At least half a dozen of them.
One raised a horn and blew a piercing, triumphant note that shattered the air.
Aradin whirled, eyes wide with raw terror.
"Shit!"
Above, Zevlor cursed, his voice already bellowing orders through the curtain of vines.
William felt Owlbert's tiny body press hard against his chest, the cub trembling, rigid with fear. His fingers slid toward the rune in his pocket as the clearing seemed to tighten around them, every heartbeat and breath magnified in the sudden stillness.
The road behind was cut off.
The cliff ahead loomed.
And in the trees, violence waited, grinning.
Steel met flesh as hands tightened around weapons.
Aradin wiped the blood from his brow with the back of his wrist, planting his feet, spear leveled despite the tremor running through his arms. One by one, the others mirrored him, faces grim, silence settling like a mantle, the wild gleam in their eyes sharpening into something fiercer. Not quite courage, but an unshakable resolve born of the simple truth: there was nowhere left to run.
High above, Zevlor acted.
The tiefling vanished from the cliff's edge, reappearing moments later beside a massive horn fixed near the gate, its surface etched with scars of countless years. He braced himself, drew in a breath impossibly deep, and blew.
The sound that followed was more than loud.
It was primeval.
A vast, warlike wave roared outward, cascading down the ravine, sweeping through the forest, rolling over hills and valleys. It rattled bones, set leaves trembling on their stems. Deep below, in the shadowed arteries of the world, the echo kissed the Underdark's ceiling before clawing its way back to the surface.
The grove awoke.
Crossbows locked into place along the wall. Tieflings leaned out from between roots and stone, loosing bolts that sang through the air. The first goblin screamed as a quarrel punched clean through its shoulder, pinning it to a tree.
Still, the patrol surged forward, laughter twisting into something feral as blades rose and shields slammed together.
And then, William moved.
He crouched low, tucking Owlbert into a shallow cradle of loose leaves and moss at the base of a fallen root.
The cub gave a single soft, frightened chirp before its feathers puffed and settled, its mottled whites and browns blending almost perfectly into bark and decay.
"Stay," William murmured, pressing two gentle fingers to the crown of the cub's head.
Owlbert stilled.
Good.
Straightening, William turned just as the battle erupted in full.
A goblin lunged for Aradin, steel clashed as spear met scimitar.
Another shrieked when a bolt tore through its thigh, while a third stumbled over the fallen, spitting curses in a tongue like gravel grinding in teeth.
From above, something leapt.
A figure vaulted from the wall with reckless grace, boots skidding on stone as he slid down the cliff face.
Sparks flashed where his blade scraped rock, slowing his descent just enough.
He hit the ground already moving.
A goblin's wild swing met a crisp parry, steel ringing sharp and clear. In the same fluid motion, the newcomer stepped inside the creature's guard and drove his rapier straight through its chest.
The goblin froze, eyes wide in shock.
The man leaned close, voice calm and assured as he wrenched the blade free.
"Provoke the blade," he said lightly, flicking gore from the steel, "and suffer its sting!"
The goblin crumpled.
William stared for half a breath, dark hair, poised stance, a presence that demanded attention without asking. Wyll.
The Blade of Frontiers turned, grinning at the next wave of foes as though the battlefield were his personal stage.
William felt the hum of his own power awaken, psionic pressure swelling like a rising tide behind his eyes.
The horn's echo still hung in the air.
Bolts fell as if it were raining, and steel sang a chorus of death and carnage.
It was time to choose a spell. He scrolled swiftly through the panel until his gaze locked on one that radiated power and control: Darkness. Perfect.
Raising his hand, he summoned the magic, and the air above his palm thickened into a dense, writhing sphere of pure black energy.
Shadows writhed and twisted like storm-born smoke, hungrily feeding on the arcane spark of his will.
With a sudden, decisive thrust, he hurled it forward.
In an instant, the battlefield was engulfed.
Goblins screamed in panic, their claws and weapons flailing wildly, striking friend as often as foe.
The air was filled with curses and cries as chaos rippled outward like fire through dry brush.
Through the suffocating void he had conjured, William moved with lethal grace, dagger poised for the strike.
Though his sight was stolen by the darkness, the Tieflings, blessed with the inherent gift of Darkvision, struck any goblins seen escaping from the encapsulating fog of shadow with deadly bolts from above.
He struck down the first goblin that blundered too near, his dagger slicing deep into its throat as thick, blackened blood burst forth in heavy ribbons, staining the swirling mist like ink bleeding across parchment. Another goblin lunged wildly into the gloom, only to fall just as swiftly, William's blade carving lethal arcs through the fog with unerring precision.
Overhead, arrows curved soundlessly from Tiefling bows, felling the blinded creatures with cold, practiced grace. Crossbows cracked, quivers emptied in a heartbeat, and chaos surged, but the humans and Tieflings fought as one, bound by dark vision and instinctive trust.
William moved like a phantom in a deadly dance, each step a calculated weave through peril, striking where the goblins faltered, scattering their ranks with every slash. He ducked low, rolled between shadows, and pivoted sharply, letting the darkness cloak his form, leaving nothing behind but silence, ruin, and the lingering terror of the unseen blade in the dark.