You walk out the front door.

Your ally follows, hand on their weapon, but you signal them to hold back. This is your fight. Your statement.

The shadow doesn’t flee. It watches as you cross the street, stopping just outside arm’s reach. Up close, it’s less solid than it seemed—a darkness that writhes and shifts, never quite settling into a fixed form.

“I know you’re watching,” you say. “I know you’re reporting to him.”

The shadow tilts its head. A mockery of curiosity.

“Tell your master I’m not afraid.”

Aren’t you?

The voice crawls into your mind. Not Varek’s voice—something lesser. A fragment. An echo.

The master sees all. The master knows all. You are a spark against an endless night. You will flicker. You will fail. You will—

You reach for the light inside you.

This time, you don’t just react. You push. The gem’s power flows through you, purple light blazing from your hand, and you thrust it into the shadow’s core.

The creature screams.

Not with a voice—with something deeper. A vibration that shakes your teeth, your bones, your soul. The darkness convulses, tears, begins to dissolve.

And as it dies, something falls from its center.

A coin. Old gold, tarnished and worn. On one side, a scale. On the other, a face you recognize from the murals.

Aldric the Golden.

The shadow is gone. Your hand is shaking. Your ally runs to your side.

“That was… incredible. And terrifying. Are you all right?”

You pick up the coin.

The moment you touch it, you feel something. A whisper of memory. Aldric’s voice, distant and sad:

My sin was silence. My punishment is to watch. But perhaps my shame can still serve a purpose. Take this coin to where the founders fell. It will show you what I was too cowardly to reveal in life.

Then the voice is gone, and you’re holding just a coin.

But you know, somehow, that it’s more than that.

It’s a key.