The morning air in Darkshire had that same damp hush, but today it felt like the whole town was holding its breath. I ran messages and parcels for Master Harris — corpseweed wrapped tight and handed over with a curt nod — and in doing so found myself pulled through the town hall and down toward the Yorgen and Addle Steads. Somewhere between gravestones and the leaning houses I learned a new trick: Explosive Shot. The blast knocked the silence apart in a way that pleased me; there’s poetry in fire and powder, and it makes hunting a little more satisfying.
Between that and shifting my talents around, I chased down a string of tasks that tugged at the darker edges of Duskwood. I soothed restless souls with a censer, hunted and harvested widow venom and bear brains for Harris’s work, and even dug up the disturbance at a weathered grave to learn Morgan Ladimore’s tale. Mor’Ladim’s path wound like the fog, and finding Sarah Ladimore — the daughter who lived — felt like setting a small thing right in a place full of wrongs.
Before the sun slipped, iron at a roadside seam found its way into my pack and, to my own surprise and loud delight, I climbed to level 31. I rode that little triumph all the way back to town, bow slung and mind already mapping where the next whisper in the wood will lead me.