Her legs hurt. Her eyes were sore. She had been crying without tears; her body had none left to give.

Diski Ladel, beloved daughter. Joins her parents in death. Taken from this world too soon by Goblin Raids. The Goblin Lord has been slain. She has been avenged. [Farmhand], Level 3 estimated.

She had found the tomb shortly after passing where she had started. The young woman wept.

The daughter had not lived long past the parents. The carvers had spared her of her age—perhaps they hadn’t known. The engravings were utilitarian. Spartan.

In this place, they still tore at her soul. She cared. She cared for this family she had never met, who had lost first the mother, then father, and then—daughter. By Goblins. At this point, she no longer knew if she believed in this…fakery. Part of her believed, part of her denied it. She was so tired. Despairing. She cried.

Because she knew she was going to die. There was no water. No food. She had been walking so long her very bones hurt. And she had been going the wrong way half the time.

It was so hard to be brave. She tried. She kept walking. She refused to just lie down and die. No one would save her. But what had happened? She was so—lost.

Behind her, the tears made the watching presence hesitate. Tears…it knew tears, like the memory of rain. So far distant an age had passed since it had seen any. But the tears provoked guilt. Guilt—and yet she was an intruder. It hardened its heart. But another question sprang to mind.

How had she entered? The ward was secure. Crumbling, weakened, but still secure. It had checked a dozen times. How? She was no [Mage], no [Thief]…and she looked merely Human.

It looked away from the young woman as she wept for the dead. Onwards, the young woman stumbled.

——

She was going to die here.

The hours and darkness wore her down. Unending, relentless, closing in, pulling at her exhausted muscles, her deprived body. The young woman sank to her knees. She couldn’t keep walking. She was…dying. It was closer to a day, now. She was tired beyond belief. Her body ached.

It was too dark. She kept hallucinating that she saw something in the perfect black. And her sleep and hunger-addled mind was playing tricks on her. She saw nightmares and screamed in the darkness.

“Stop. Enough!”

That was all she said. She begged for it. Let the evil be real and tear her to shreds. This—hallucination was worse. She was going insane with her fears. The intruder pulled herself up onto the tomb and shouted into the darkness.

“I’m done, you hear me? Just eat me already! Kill me! Don’t string me along! I’d rather die! Just—”