“Thank you,” he whispered. “I was so tired of being a quest.”

Iona thought about it. She thought about the log, the quests, the endless checklist of things she had to become. She thought about the potter’s wheel back home, the feel of wet clay spinning between her palms. She thought about the miller’s son and his nice forearms.

The Greymire Fen was exactly as pleasant as it sounded. Thigh-deep in black water, surrounded by willows that whispered insults, hunted by Shadows that had no faces but many, many teeth. Iona’s survival chance dropped to 8%. Then 5%. Then 3%.

“You didn’t choose this quest. But you chose to keep walking. That’s not nothing.”

“It’s sassy,” Iona muttered.

And that, the log would have said if it still had words, was the real main quest all along.

The log updated: Sun-Kissed Blade acquired. Effectiveness against Shadows: 7% (scales with confidence). Current confidence: 4%. Consider a pep talk.

Beneath it, a new note had appeared, in handwriting that looked like her own:

Iona—no, the woman who had been Iona—sat down at the potter’s wheel. She touched the wet clay. It spun between her palms, cool and patient.

Outside, the sun rose. It had never been in danger; the log had exaggerated. That was the thing about quest logs. They made everything sound epic. Sometimes a prince was just a sad boy with a bad heart-shard. Sometimes a hero was just a potter’s daughter who tripped a lot and had inexplicably good luck. Iona returned to Dustwallow. The log went dormant, its pages blank except for one final entry:

At 2%, she stepped on a submerged root, fell face-first into the muck, and came up sputtering—and found herself staring at the Ghost Piper of Drowned-Town.

The piper played. The lullaby seeped into Iona’s bones, cold and sweet. When it ended, Iona could no longer remember what her mother called her at breakfast. She knew she had once been something, someone. But the name was gone, a bird flown from an open cage.

The log updated: Lullaby learned. Name: [REDACTED]. Current identity: Questing vessel. Note: This was either very brave or very stupid. Possibly both. The Spire rose from the center of the fen like a black needle stitching the earth to the sky. Inside, the Greater Shadows waited—six of them, as promised. They were not monsters. They were echoes. Each one showed Iona a version of herself she might have become.

“Oh, well. Practically immortal.” The companions came harder.