The door sealed behind him with the sound of stone grinding on stone—a final breath before silence.
Koda stood alone in the vault.
It wasn't large. No towering spires of forgotten lore, no ancient chandeliers dripping dust. Just stillness. Cold. Heavy. A chamber carved by will, not for comfort or reverence, but restraint.
At the far end, set upon a black pedestal, the mirror waited.
It was small. Framed in dull iron, pitted and plain. The glass was colorless, yet rippling faintly—as if water stirred behind the surface.
Envy.
He stepped forward. The air grew sharp. Pressure built behind his eyes. But he kept walking.
The Guide had shown him glimpses—echoes of what this was. But seeing it now, feeling it unchained, was something else. This was no artifact. No tool. It was a wound in the world, sealed in silver.
He reached it.
The mirror shimmered as if breathing.
And then, without ceremony, Koda placed his hand against the glass.
The world shattered.
There was no fall, no flicker. Just change.
He stood not in the vault, but somewhere else—nowhere. A void made of mirrors and memory. Of reflections too quick to follow. And they all showed him.
But not as he was.
Better. Stronger. Loved. Admired. Obeyed.
A thousand variations. Each one of them envied.
His breath caught.
Then the voices began.
"You were meant for more."
"Why do they hesitate when you speak?"
"They owe you everything. And give you crumbs."
He turned—there was no turning. The mirror-place responded to thought like breath. Each time he denied the voices, the images sharpened. Each time he acknowledged them, they multiplied.
This was not a challenge of strength. Not even will. It was hunger. Insidious. Subtle. It fed not on greed—but on wounds.
Koda took a breath. "I see you," he said softly.
And the images paused.
"I know your name. You are not my ambition. You are not justice. You are envy. You wear their faces. You twist their praise into poison. But you are not me."
Silence.
Then the reflections changed.
Now they showed Maia—kneeling.
Calthis—obeying.
A city—chanting his name.
And for a heartbeat, it felt right.
A seed of warmth. Recognition. Relief.
He stepped back. "No."
The warmth turned to fire. The glass shrieked without sound. The chamber warped.
"They will never see you as you are."
"Let me help."
Koda closed his eyes.
He pictured his father's hands. Calloused. Firm. Never cruel. He pictured the Guide—laughing. He pictured Maia's face, unflinching when she spoke truth.
And then he reached forward.
"I do not need to be seen."
He placed his hand once more against the nearest reflection.
"I choose to see."
And the mirror cracked.
Light bled through. Not blinding—but clear. Clean. The thousand reflections shattered, not with fury—but like glass set free from pressure.
He opened his eyes.
And he was back in the vault.
The mirror before him was dark.
Crack.
A hairline fracture traced beneath his fingers.
Crack.
Another, blooming outward like a spider's web across the surface.
Then the whole of it—shattered.
Shards danced in the still air, suspended for a breathless second before dissolving into golden light. No clang, no chaos. Only silence.
And then—
Divine Trait Acquired: Kindness
A gentle power born of choice. Of understanding without denial.
He staggered a little, as if something unlatched inside him. Kindness—it didn't come from defeating envy. It came from walking through it and not losing himself.
Not denying its presence.
But refusing to let it lead.
The mirror was gone.
But Envy had not been destroyed. It had been resolved—its edge turned inward, transformed. Residing in harmony with Kindness within Koda.
He breathed deep, and for the first time in weeks, the air didn't feel thin.
The vault door sighed open—not with a mechanical groan, but like a breath exhaled after long restraint.
Koda stepped out, the echo of ancient magic still clinging to his form. His boots touched the stone with purpose, yet without fanfare.
Maia stood waiting, her eyes searching his face the instant he appeared. Her worry collapsed into relief, and then quickly folded into something steadier—pride. But she said nothing yet. Neither did he.
Calthis, too, waited in silence. Not with the patience of ceremony, but with the stillness of one who had been changed by witnessing a threshold crossed.
Koda's gaze flicked forward. A faint shimmer—like morning light passing through a thin curtain—drifted around him before vanishing. The vault behind him gave no hint of what had transpired inside. No shattered glass. No cursed relic. Only silence.
But they knew.
Calthis stepped forward. His voice, ever measured, carried something softer now. "You broke it?"
Koda shook his head once. "No. I understood it."
He turned slightly, letting his status window manifest—translucent and golden. Floating before him like a living page. Maia's breath caught as she read the new line.
Kindness (Divine) - "A gentle power born of choice. Of understanding without denial."
The bearer of Kindness may temporarily access the abilities, skills, or traits of those whose core beliefs or powers they have willingly accepted—not in agreement, but in understanding.
Maia touched her chest lightly, as if she could feel it too.
"You took on a curse," Calthis said slowly, "and came back with a gift."
Koda's voice was low, but unshaken. "It wasn't a curse. Not really. Not until it was locked away and left to rot by the dead god. Envy is… the shadow of unspoken longing for what could have been. But when you meet it, and listen—truly listen—it becomes something else. What could be."
Maia took his hand.
And in the quiet, Calthis finally smiled—one of the rare, worn kind that spoke of hope, not certainty. "One down," he said. "How many more to go?"
Koda didn't flinch. "As many as it takes. Before they merge."
He looked to Maia now—more than just his bond, more than just love. She was his anchor.
"And each one we face," he continued, "we claim a piece of what the god could be. But not to rebuild it. To keep it from becoming what it was."
He looked down at his hands, then back up. "One corrupted trait at a time."
Then looking up, as though he could see through the stone. "Lust is near, Wrath has claimed Sloth and is hunting. Pride has not shown itself to us yet."
Calthis stepped beside Koda, his expression grave but reverent. "Envy… was not the inheritance," he said softly, as if afraid the mirror's remnants might still be listening. "That was found long after. No, the inheritance we spoke of… is deeper. It was placed here by the first who understood what might be needed, should the Guide ever walk among us again."
He led them toward the rear of the chamber—past archives ancient enough to predate nations, past shelves carved directly into the earth, where no torch burned and no breeze stirred.
At the end stood a wall, featureless but for a single mark: the sigil of the Eternal Guide, faded almost to invisibility. Calthis reached forward, and with only a brush of his fingers, the stone trembled. The wall sighed open—not through force, but recognition. An ancient key, built not of metal but of presence.
A low hiss filled the chamber as stale, ageless air breathed free. What was revealed was not a vault. It was a sanctum.
And in the center, waiting untouched, was a pool of mist—black as shadow, still as oil, and dense with meaning. The very stone around it had been reinforced by layered enchantments. Not to contain it, but to honor it.
"The essence of shadow," Calthis said. "The only relic the Order never tried to understand. Because it wasn't for us. It was left for you. Or him. Whoever of the Guide would return."
Koda stepped closer.
As he approached, the system reacted—not with noise, but with a subtle flicker at the edge of his awareness. A presence reaching across memory, responding not to Koda alone—but to the Guide within him.
The pool stirred.
Tendrils of shadow reached upward, tasting the air, and then moved with intent—rising and spiraling around him. They did not consume. They recognized. And as they wrapped around him, they did not chill. They fitted.
The mist solidified.
Armor.
It formed cleanly, efficiently, as though it had done this once before. The shape of it was unmistakable—an echo of what Koda had worn in the field, what the Order had copied in reverence and ignorance.
But this… this was the original.
The armor was silent but undeniable. Strong support at the shoulders and chest gave it the stance of a fortress—dense enough to withstand real war, but sculpted to allow perfect freedom of movement. The forearms and greaves bore integrated plating, seamlessly joined to the joints without restricting speed or grace. The spine was reinforced by a line of interlocking plates, almost serpentine, running from the base of his back up into the shoulders—protection where most would not expect it, but the kind only a warrior-scholar would insist on.
And where his body needed to move—his sides, under the arms, behind the knees and neck—there was a strange material. Smooth as silk, yet it shimmered faintly with the same resistance one might find in plate armor. It moved with him, second skin to intention.
A hood formed last, rising from the collar and resting easily, as if it had known this place. It bore no ornament. No crest. Only utility.
Koda flexed a hand, then a knee. The armor didn't fight him. It followed him. And with only a stray thought—unformed, instinctive—the entire suit melted into vapor again, spiraling into a single point and condensing at his chest.
A pendant.
Small, round, blackened steel. No chain, only a thread of the same strange silk. It hung perfectly still against his shirt.
Calthis let out a slow breath. "We never touched it. Never dared. But we knew… it was meant to be worn again."
Maia stepped forward quietly, awe in her eyes. "It suits you."
Koda glanced down at the pendant, his hand resting lightly over it.
The pendant still warm against his chest, Koda let out a slow breath. The armor had felt alive—reactive, responsive, not bonded to him, but ready to serve. A tool. A gift. Nothing more.
He turned toward Maia and Calthis, gaze steady.
"This changes things," he said. "But not the course. If anything, it makes it clearer."
Calthis gave a slow nod, folding his hands behind his back.
Koda stepped forward, voice calm but certain. "Wrath is moving again. We saw what it left behind last time. I won't face it half-prepared. Not again. I need strength—not just mine, but enough to match what we're fighting."
He looked to Maia briefly, then back to Calthis.
"I want to test Kindness. If it works the way it's described… I might be able to learn from those willing to let me. Mirror what they've refined through experience, not to copy, but to carry forward. To understand it well enough that it becomes part of how I fight."
Calthis raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "You intend to… absorb traits? Skills?"
"Something like that," Koda said. "Not permanently. Not like the primal god does. This isn't Gluttony or Greed—I'm not trying to take anything away. But if I can reach into the heart of what someone has mastered, even for a short time, then I can learn how to meet what's coming."
Maia smiled faintly, the way she always did when Koda found clarity.
"But that's just half of it," he continued. "We'll train in the scars nearby—wrath-touched terrain. Adapt to the conditions, sharpen against the aftershock of what we'll face."
He turned to Calthis again. "While we prepare… can the Order help track Lust? I want the pattern—every report, every unexplained collapse, every whisper of something not quite human. If these shards are reaching for each other, we need to know where they're pulling from."
Calthis inclined his head slowly. "You'll have it. Discreetly. The Archives hold every sighting the churches buried or deemed too delicate for public knowledge. If Lust has stirred, it will leave a trail."
Koda gave a quiet nod. "Then we move quickly."