Aggro Litrpg || Progression Fantasy

The door gave a long, deliberate creak. Which I could respect. I hope I've made my feelings on proper doors and floors. They should announce arrivals and broadcast exits. Silence is for ambushes. I'd rigged enough buildings in my old life to know that quiet only helped the wrong people. However, considering right now, I thought that Lia and I were very much the 'wrong people', this was a small comfort.

The interior of the building wasn't abandoned, exactly, but it gave the impression of having been left behind in more ways than one. The air was still, and I could taste the dust on my tongue. To be fair, though, it didn't smell to my senses as dangerous. Rather, it smelled forgotten. Except I knew someone was expecting us.

The light in here was all wrong, too. What little filtered in through the slats of boarded windows came in sideways, like it had changed its mind halfway through and decided not to bother finishing the job. Everything looked like it was waiting. Far too still. Even the shadows in the corners stayed where they were like they'd been told not to move while guests were present.

"Where's your contact?" I whispered.

Lia didn't answer.

Then, a figure moved in the far corner. Not emerged—just wasn't there one moment, and then was the next. It was an old man, I thought. Bent. Wrapped in layers of worn fabric that might once have been robes. His skin had that waxy look people get when they've been indoors too long, and his eyes... his eyes didn't match. One was milky and unfocused, the other a deep blue that passed over me quickly and then locked on Lia.

I didn't move. But then again, neither did he. I'd call that a score draw.

"You're late," he said.

"We weren't given a time," Lia said.

"There's always a time," he replied. "You just didn't know it."

How very through the looking-glass of him. I half-expected a pocket watch and a white rabbit to be next. But, no, instead, he stepped forward, the boards beneath his feet creaking just once. Just enough to suggest he was real. Mostly.

"You've come for the name," he said.

"We've come for confirmation of a name," Lia corrected.

He ignored her, fixing that one sharp eye on me again. "And you're the Warden."

I did my best to ignore Lia's suddenly very curious expression. "Depends on who's asking," I said.

"You've walked too far already," he said. "You might think this is where things begin, but they began long before you were born. Before your blood touched this soil. Before the Guardian fell."

"You knew my Aunt?" I said. Not a question. Not really.

He gave the smallest nod. "She held the gate longer than most. But time eats even the strong. Now the Watch is empty… and the Veil thins. Will you be sufficient?" He looked my up and down. "Early indications are not positive."

Then he turned slightly as if listening to something far off that only he could hear. "Another has come," he said. "One of yours. Not far from here. Different thread. Same cloth."

That was going to Katya, wasn't it? Awesome. But before I could push that further, the old man's one working eye opened wide. "You should be gone from here. But you won't be. You'll stay. You'll step where she stepped, deeper than she ever dared. And the thing behind the Veil will know your name."

Before I could push this further, Lia stepped forward. "Enough riddles. We didn't come all this way to get drenched in prophecy. Where's the Alchemist?"

"You're angry, Lia Jorgensdottir," he said."Always so angry. Has anything ever been improved by having your rage pointed at it?"Then he turned to me with a look that might've passed for pity in a better-lit room. "She will need to learn the value of forgiveness."

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"She's right here," Lia said. Her hand settled on the hilt of her blade, fingers resting there in the way one might rest a finger on a trigger. Not overtly threatening. But promising. "And she's not in the mood."

"Not yet," he said softly. "But it comes."

Lia cleared her throat. "If you're trying to impress us, it's not working. She asked you a question. Don't make her ask twice."

"You came for a name," he said. "But names won't help you."

"Try me," Lia said.

"You don't need a name. You need a place."

"Fine. Then give me that. And if I find out you're stalling, I will cut your tongue out and use it as a bookmark."

He chuckled at that. "There's a glade in the woods," he said. "Northwest of here. You'll find a well with no winch, no bucket. Just a ring of broken stone, half-sunken in the moss."

"That's where he is?" I asked.

He shook his head slowly like gravity had grown heavier. "That's where it is."

Lia's hand flexed on her hilt, knuckles whitening. "I didn't come here for riddles or rhymes," she said. "If you've got something useful to say, say it. If not—don't waste our time."

He raised his hands, palms open, fingers long and too still. "No riddles," he said. "You asked for truth. That's it. The alchemist you're hunting set up his workings near the well. Too near, if you ask me. The Veil's threadbare there—worn thin like old silk. Sometimes, it sings. Sometimes, it weeps. And whatever he's doing out there... Well, the proximity's made his craft... flexible."

Flexible. That word didn't belong anywhere near alchemy—whatever it meant in this world. Back home—back then—there was a man we only ever referred to as the Professor. No surname. No national allegiance. A chemist by trade and a war tourist by hobby. On more than one occasion, Griff had sent me to watch him. First in eastern Ukraine, then in the Caucasus, and finally, Istanbul, where I thought we'd seen the last of him.

He didn't make bombs, he made ideas that exploded. Substances that reacted not just with chemicals but with people. Mood agents, viral solvents, and inhalants that made entire crowds forget what they were protesting. He called them "adjustments." And he smiled the whole time he said.

We'd tried to pull him in. Twice. Both times, he vanished before extraction. "Too flexible to pin down," Griff had said, chewing the cap off a biro. "Give me a fanatic or a sadist any day. But these soft-eyed polymaths? No conscience, just curiosity. They're the ones who rewrite the rules."

If the alchemist we were looking for was anything like that, we were heading straight toward a very clever disaster.

"You must understand, though," the man carried on. "He is not just near the Veil," he's reaching through it. Calling out into the places where shape and sense unravel. And things have been answering. I think you two have probably already encountered some of them. You have the scent of Shadow upon you."

"If he's that close to piercing the Veil – if he's that dangerous—why hasn't anyone stopped him?" Lia asked.

The man turned his one-eyed gaze to me again. "Because there is no one left to stop him," he said softly. "The Guardian has fallen. The old Wards are broken. The edges fray, and the world forgets what kept it whole. If something is not done, the Threshold will fail utterly and then . . . well, cataclysm."

There was a pause before he spoke again. "Although," he added, voice thinning to a whisper, "maybe someone may stand in the breach." I didn't think he was talking to Lia anymore.

"Enough of this. Just point me in the right way and I will bring this to a close."

The man reached into the folds of his coat and pulled out a small, oilskin-wrapped square. He handed it to her without further ceremony. "Here. The path is marked to the glade. Don't stray from it."

Lia took the map without thanks. "Why help us?" she asked. "If the Veil's thinning, if the Threshold's already crumbling… why not let it all fall? Isn't that what your kind wants? Collapse. Breach. The end of the line."

"No," he said, and there was steel beneath the dust of his voice. "You mistake the song for the singer. The Veil should be crossed, yes—but not torn. To pass through is not to destroy. It is to learn. To explore. To behold. But those who claw at it, who twist its edges to serve their hunger… they do not seek understanding. They seek dominion."

He paused. The air between us felt like it had stopped breathing.

"That cannot be allowed. Not yet. And not while a Warden still draws breath."

"Warden? Pfft," Lia said. "You intone that like the title still means something. Like myths matter. Like they ever did. No Warden's ever done a damn thing for me. And I'm not waiting around for them to intercede, either. I'll find this alchemist and end it. Simple as that."

"Just remember," the man said, voice low and reverent, like quoting something older than both of us, "the well isn't dry." A pause. Then, quieter still. "It never was."

We turned to leave. The door creaked again behind us as we stepped into the grey daylight, and for the first time, I wasn't comforted by the sound.

We walked in silence for a while.

Then I said, "That was fun. Want to explain what the hell that was all about?"

"No," Lia said.

Fair enough.