Turn 5 of 13

Press Ordwin on what he really knows about R. and sabotaged Allocations

You stop walking. The filtered green light catches the grey in Ordwin's beard, the weathered leather of his armor, the way his eyes keep sliding toward the carved marker without quite focusing on it. Forty-seven deaths, he said. Watched them. Learned nothing. But he recognized your status window instantly, knew the signature of sabotage, and now he's following you into a warren that eats people.

"You didn't stumble here," you say. "You weren't patrolling. You were waiting."

Ordwin's jaw tightens. He says nothing.

"The R on the marker—refuge, remnant, goblin clan-sign. But you knew I saw something else in it. You knew before I spoke." You step closer, close enough to smell the woodsmoke in his clothes, the old sweat of someone who camps alone.

"How many others had an enemy who signed their paperwork? How many times have you seen that initial?"

"Three," he admits, the word dragged out like a confession. "Including you. Two women, one man. Same pattern: one stat maxed to absurdity, everything else gutted. One had Empathy ninety-eight, couldn't stop feeling other people's pain until she walked into a river. One had Stubbornness ninety-seven, literally refused to die until starvation took him anyway."

He turns away, studying the darkening path ahead where mushrooms glow faintly with their own sick light.

"The Allocator doesn't read the forms. Divine functionary, bored for centuries, stamps whatever crosses the desk. But someone learned the system. Someone with a grudge and patience enough to study celestial bureaucracy."

"R.," you say, and it isn't a question.

Ordwin's hand finds his bow again, not raising it, just touching the wood like a talisman.

"I don't know who R. was to you," he says. "But I know what they are now. The other two died before they could find out. You're the first who might survive long enough to answer my question."

"Which is?"

"Whether R. is still watching. Whether this is still a game to them." He finally meets your eyes, and his own are haunted by forty-seven failures and three signatures he couldn't stop.

"Whether they'll show themselves if you get far enough."