Calamity Awakens

The gray bled in without warning. Harold blinked, and the warmth of his quarters was gone, the sounds of laughter from the longhouse cut short.

He sat at a table. Not wood, not stone — something polished and deep, reflecting faint light that didn't exist. A decanter rested in the center, glass tumblers at either side.

Gerold poured with flawless grace, posture crisp in his immaculate black suit. Red eyes glimmered faintly in the featureless dark, softened only by the butler's polished courtesy. He slid a glass across to Harold.

"You'll want this," he said smoothly. "I find men do better when their mouths are wet before gods start lecturing them."

Harold smirked tiredly, lifted the tumbler, and let the liquor burn down his throat. "Feels like I've drunk with you more than with anyone else since this started."

Gerold inclined his head, faint smile curling. "And yet you're still standing. Gods wound. Drink comforts. You tell me which is the greater danger."

Harold set the glass down, leaning his elbows on the table. "You ever get tired of it? All this… divine politicking?"

The demon butler's eyes flared faintly brighter. "I was Calamity once, Harold. Raised to godhood after I'd done enough damage the universe decided it was easier to elevate me than to erase me. And still I care nothing for their games. I keep to my contracts. My deals. The rest?" He waved a gloved hand dismissively. "Noise."

Harold studied him for a moment. "Then why are you here?"

The faint smile lingered. "Because you are."

Before Harold could answer, the air shifted. Another chair scraped against unseen stone.

Verordeal appeared opposite him. Draped in a white toga pinned at the shoulder, he carried himself like a patrician senator at council — but the fabric did not hide the scars that raked across his arms, nor the line of his jaw, crooked from some long-ago blade. A refined man, yes, but a warrior wearing refinement like armor.

"Gerold." Verordeal's nod was tired, proper.

"Late," Gerold replied smoothly, pouring a second glass and sliding it toward him. "But never absent."

Verordeal accepted it without a flicker of irritation, turning his gaze on Harold. His voice was steady, proper, but hard as granite. "You overstepped."

The words landed sharp.

"You called Calamity onto an unearned target," Verordeal continued. His tone was even, Roman in its measure, but hard as iron. "That dungeon has lain dormant for centuries. It had not earned my attention. It had not drawn yours. Yet you brought ruin upon it anyway. Calamity is not license, Harold. It is test. Weight. Fire. You blurred its purpose for your own survival."

Harold bristled. "I helped save them. You saw what it was doing—"

"Calamity does not save," Verordeal cut in, voice sharper now. "It breaks. It forces choice. It is the whetstone on which others rise ...or snap." His dark gaze bore down. "You wanted victory. And now your timeline is shortened. Six days."

Before Harold could speak, the gray trembled. Another presence pressed forward, heavier, darker.

Delcar stepped into being. The god of dungeons loomed, fissures glowing faintly across stone skin, eyes deep as unlit caverns. His robe spiraled inward endlessly, pulling the gaze with it. He did not sit.

"Verordeal," he said, and the name rang like a hammer in the gray.

Verordeal inclined his head. "Delcar."

"You have dragged me where I should not stand." His gaze snapped to Harold, cutting like stonefall. "You tore death from me. That boy carried a fragment meant to return to silence. Instead, it festers in mortal flesh. You don't know what you have planted."

Harold's gut tightened. "I wasn't letting him die."

Delcar's voice thundered. "You interfered. You stirred me. I was meant to remain sanctioned, silent and bound. Do you understand what risk you invite? The Pantheon of the Dark would see me crushed more thoroughly than ever. The Fae would twist it for their courts. The North Sector war gods would drag the board to blood. Even a whisper of my stirring will ripple across the Ascension. Do you understand, Calamity? My order rising again will doom me"

Harold's breath caught. The words washed over him, naming truths he hadn't even known existed. Pantheons. Factions. Gods still active. He swallowed, unsure if he should speak.

Gerold did, his crimson eyes narrowing faintly. "You're awake enough to rant, dungeon-lord. For a god who claims silence, you sound remarkably alive."

Delcar ignored him, fissured hands clenching. "The boy will not walk untouched. You may shield him, but what is seeded cannot be plucked away." His voice cracked the silence like breaking stone. Then he faded, drawn back into shadow, leaving only the echo.

The gray stilled again.

Verordeal set his scarred hand on the table, voice low, steady. "Tomorrow, that boy will turn sixteen. The choice of class will fall to him. And for the first time in centuries, Delcar will have the chance to offer a Champion class. Of Dungeons." His gaze sharpened, the weariness not lessening but hardening into command. "You must protect him. Whatever else he becomes, whatever choice he makes, you opened that board. You pulled Delcar into play."

Harold felt the words like weights, heavy and certain. "And if I fail?"

"Then the boy is taken by powers you cannot yet fathom," Verordeal said, simple, final.

He leaned back slightly, folding his scarred hands. "For this, Harold, I owe you a boon. You've given me a piece to play. But do not mistake the gift for pardon. You also earned your rebuke. The dungeon you burned had done nothing to earn calamity. It was dormant. You turned storm upon stone. For that, the days ahead will come sooner."

The words hung between them, hard and unyielding.

Verordeal's dark eyes lingered on him, sharp and unyielding. "You were offered advancement. The system told you the requirements were met. But I will take that from you."

The words cut, sharper than any blade. Harold's pulse spiked. "What?"

"You misunderstand your place." Verordeal's tone remained calm, almost patrician, but each syllable struck like iron. "Divine classes do not rise simply because they tally numbers. They rise when their patron deems them ready. You earned the chance—but squandered it with recklessness. Your tier will wait."

The storm inside Harold churned, restless, but Verordeal did not stop.

"We had an agreement. You would pick the targets, one after another, as Calamity descends on those who draw it. But that was before you blurred the bounds. This time—your next trial—I will choose."

Harold's jaw tightened. "And if I refuse?"

Verordeal leaned forward, scarred hands steepled, his toga shifting like marble come alive. "Then your line ends here. Calamity walks because I allow it. Refusal is not your choice."

The gray seemed to darken around them, the faint echo of Delcar's warning still hanging in the air.

"Your next trial," Verordeal continued, "is not some corrupted noble house, nor a petty tyrant. It will be a family of adventurers. Successful. Noble in a way kingdoms have long forgotten. They are righteous in deed, and strong in spirit. They deserve to rise higher than they are—but that cannot happen without Calamity."

Harold's hands tightened around the glass. "You'd have me break the only decent ones?"

Verordeal's gaze hardened, but there was no cruelty in it. Only certainty. "Not break. Test. If they are what I believe, they will rise beyond you. You are strong but you have not truly fought anyone yet. They will test you as surely as you will test them. Their strength will forge new heights from the storm you bring. The weak will die, Harold, as they always do. But the strong—the strong will prove themselves worthy."

For the first time, Harold caught the faint gleam of iron beneath the exhaustion, the scarred warrior beneath the toga. Verordeal was not gloating. He was declaring.

"This is your punishment. This is your lesson. You will learn your place in the order of things. You are Calamity, Harold. Not savior. Not protector. Calamity. Understand your role—or perish trying to play another's."

The words hung like the tolling of a bell, final and inescapable.

Beside him, Gerold quietly refilled Harold's glass, his movements as precise as ever. The faintest glimmer of a smile tugged at his lips. "Drink," he said again, smooth and soft. "It will sting less on the way down."

The gray dissolved before Harold could answer. His glass was full in his hand. And beyond the walls of his quarters, the laughter of the longhouse carried faintly on in the night.

The notifications were already ringing in his vision by the time Harold closed the door.

His quarters were small, little more than a cot, a rough newly made chair, and a small table from rough timber. Barely standing straight. The faint hum of the longhouse drifted through the timber walls—laughter, mugs clinking, the shuffle of boots over planks. It should have been comforting. Instead it only reminded him of what they had survived, and what he had called down on them.

He sat heavily on the edge of the cot, rubbing his face with both hands. The system prompts pulsed like a heartbeat against his eyes, cold and insistent. His body still thrummed with the growth—strength woven deeper into bone, fortitude stitching itself into muscle—but his mind felt like it had been scraped hollow.

You called Calamity.

The memory struck sharp. The flash of lightning. The screams on the wall. The way the power had cracked inside him, wrong, heavy, like lifting a stone too big to ever put down. And the aftermath—the boy, alive when he shouldn't be, marked by something Harold didn't understand.

He exhaled through his teeth, long and slow. Maybe I overstepped. Maybe I didn't. Either way… I did it.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

His eyes drifted to the chair across the room. He almost expected Hal to be there, curled at his feet, but the space was empty. Reaching through Oathsense had soothed him a little, the steady pulse of his Brands returning his call. But Hal had been distant. Faint. Alive, yes—but far.

The notifications pulsed harder, demanding his attention. He swiped them open, forcing himself to look.

The words from Verordeal still rang in his ears about him not being the hero. It struck him deeper than it should have. He had already started to realize it but to have it shoved in his face so plainly like that hurt when he didn't think it would.

He picked Skill modification.

Then picked Brand without thinking too much about it. Helping the base of his power will always be helpful.

The notifications pulsed, waiting. Harold rubbed his temples, the cot creaking beneath him as he leaned forward. Four choices. Four futures.

Brand Sanctuary
Your Branded will not die the first time they would take a fatal blow. The Brand shatters instead, saving their life. (Once per Brand per day, Brand will reform over variable amount of time).

His chest tightened. He thought of the recruits who hadn't walked out. Of miners bleeding on stone floors. They weren't Branded yet but he dreamed of a day where all or most of his people were. He wouldn't have to suffer Daran's children waiting by the door, watching their father stagger home covered in scars. This would mean fewer burials. Fewer families torn raw.

But the cost—"the Brand shatters." He knew what that meant. A awful hollow when a Brand died, the bond severed. What if Hal was cut away from him, even for a day? A week? What if the silence lasted longer? The thought made his hand curl into a fist. Could he bear that pain over and over? Could they?

Brand Overdrive
Force a Branded into a state of overwhelming strength. Their stats double and their Dao flares violently, but the Brand suffers extreme exhaustion for variable length of time after.

This one sang of power. He could see it, so clear—Kelan surging like a juggernaut, Daran breaking berserkers in half, Halvor tearing through whole packs. Walls falling, lines buckling. Overdrive could win battles before they even began.

But battles weren't a single moment. When Overdrive ended, exhaustion came. He pictured Kelan's arms trembling, Daran's shield slipping, Halvor collapsing under his own weight. He'd be trading tomorrow's strength for today's victory. But maybe he could reserve some strength to protect them after? It was something to think about.

Brand Symbiosis
You and your Branded share power. A fraction of your stats flow into them, and theirs into you.

It sounded right. Sharing strength. Standing as one. The kind of unity his people already fought with.

He already gained more stats than anyone else he talked to, he could substantially increase his Brands ability but then Daran's words came back to him. It wasn't the points on the screen, it was everyone's strength of their Dao. Their strength of purpose.

The bonds pulsed faintly in his chest, answering without words. Trust us. Lean on us. He shut his eyes, jaw tight.

Brand: Bloodline Evolution
Your Brand awakens dormant potential within the blood of those you claim. Your Brand will guide them to opportunities to evolve a bloodline they are compatible with. Over time, their very race may evolve into greater forms—may create new bloodlines that never existed before.

This one stopped him cold. His heart thudded heavy as he stared at it.

Not just strength. Not just survival. Legacy and change. A Branded wolf becoming something more, greater, stranger. A miner turned titan. A bloodline rewritten. A new people shaped in the shadow of his Calamity.

It was intoxicating. It was terrifying.

Who was he to twist bloodlines? Who was he to decide what a creature became? Would he be guiding them upward—or damning them into something unnatural? But his Brand had only helped people so far. Even now it had guided Hal to an opportunity he was seizing.

Was that even still a choice they'd make? Or one he'd force onto them the way Vero forced his hand?

He thought of Hal, of the boy carrying Delcar's spark, of Lira's furious eyes when she fought the shaman. Could he burden them with something like this? Could he not, when the world would only get harsher?

Every option weighed differently on him, pressing down in ways he didn't want to measure. Save lives now. Win battles now. Share strength now. Or gamble everything on a future he couldn't even picture.

Harold scrubbed a hand over his face, throat tight. He wanted Hal. He wanted someone to lean into, to steady him. The Brands pulsed softly in his chest, Kelan's stone-solid, Lira's flame still flickering. Comfort, but not answer.

The choices burned in his vision, and Harold closed his eyes against them, chest heavy with the weight of what they asked him to become and he picked Bloodline Evolution.

He wasnt sure yet what a bloodline offered but he remembered one of his original classes offered a way to loot bloodlines. It to be powerful and a way to guide someone to a bloodline perfectly suited to them? There was no compare.

He made his choice and pulled up the next panel.

Yes.

This was easy, one reducing the mana cost would be important in the future so that I could move people around easier without collapsing then be able to do it more often. Too many of skills already bottomed him out after a couple uses and he had more mana than a lot of mages for his level.

His choice made he moved onto the next one.

Harold stared at it, jaw set.

Hal's bond tugged faint and distant, like a wolf howling across mountains. Part of him wanted that clearer. He missed the wolf, wanted his voice sharp instead of muffled. But that was sentiment talking, and sentiment wouldn't help stop what happened in the dungeon again.

In the dungeon, clarity was life. Orders cut seconds faster. Sight through another's eyes when a trap was waiting. A line that couldn't be broken by sorcery or noise. He didn't need comfort — he needed options. Oathsense was strained when talking through the door of the dungeon, he wouldn't let that happen when they entered again.

His lips pressed thin. "Better I hear the ones bleeding beside me than the one too far to reach."

The words pulsed again. He chose.

[Oath Perception Acquired.]

Ok onto the next panel.

Harold leaned back, the cot creaking under his weight, and let the options churn.

One hundred Build Points. A tempting pile. Enough to carve rivers, seed forests, shift stone into barricades. Enough to shape the field so it played to him, not his enemies. Useful, but in the end just numbers. Terrain meant little if the men on it couldn't hold their ground.

Seeding the Earth tugged at him harder. Ore veins, herb groves, hidden springs—resources waiting to be mined and brought home. That was wealth. That was certainty. Things he could carry out of the Calamity when all this burned down, things that would matter after. It was almost perfect.

Because resources weren't worth shit if he couldn't keep the wolves from tearing his people apart.

Buildings. Two of them, already there, already solid. A longhouse, a forge, a watchtower—whatever the system spat out or let him pick from, it was a fort. A foothold. Something his soldiers could bleed inside of instead of in the open. With walls and a roof, he could shape the land around it. Build points on top of a fortress was power. Build points without walls was just delay.

Once he found his commander, the Brands would start to filter into the platoon. Men with anchors, women with teeth, not just volunteers hoping to live through the next fight. When that day came, the fort would matter. It'd give them a place to stand, a place to hold, a place to call theirs even if it was only for a handful of days before Calamity demanded it all back.

Best to have it ready for them when it came.

The notifications faded, the weight of decisions settling like stones in Harold's gut. He leaned back, dragged a hand down his face, and reached for the mug at his bedside. The liquor burned on the way down, but it wasn't sharp enough to cut through the exhaustion dragging at his bones.

The sound of laughter and song drifted through the timbers of the longhouse walls. Mugs clinked, voices rose in drunken cheer, boots scuffed against wood. They were celebrating survival. Celebrating that ten dead hadn't been twenty, that the wounded still breathed, that the boy lived.

Harold pushed himself up and stepped outside, letting the chill night air wash over him. The fire crackled bright, shadows dancing across faces flushed with drink and heat. For a moment, he simply stood there, sipping his drink, letting the warmth of it settle beside the quiet ache in his chest.

Freedom. His Dao pulsed faintly, tugging at him like a reminder. Freedom, yet here he was, shackled to a deal with Verordeal. Shackled to a cycle where his hand fell where he was told it must. Was that contradiction—or was that the point?

The hardest paths made the hardest people. The storm broke most—but those who survived came out sharper, stronger, truer to themselves. Maybe that was the shape of freedom. Not a life without chains, but one where breaking them meant something.

His jaw tightened, eyes drifting over the faces at the fire. Men and women laughing, eating, healing. He'd forged them in blood and fear. He'd broken them against the wall and dragged them back to stand again. It was exhausting. Always exhausting.

And maybe rewarding, too.

If only he didn't have to keep watching his people die to make them into what they were meant to be.

He drained the mug, the firelight flickering against the scars on his hands, and let the warmth sit there a moment longer before the weight of tomorrow came back pressing in.