CHAPTER 4 — “The Girl Who Stayed” #2
It’s cluttered, first of all. Shelves line every wall, packed with jars and bottles and things I can’t identify. Dried herbs hang from the ceiling in bundles. There’s a fireplace with a pot bubbling over it, releasing steam that smells like something between soup and medicine.
And there are books. Actual books, leather-bound and ancient, stacked on tables and chairs and any horizontal surface that isn’t already occupied.
Interesting, Johnson says. She’s a practitioner. Low-level, hedge-witch tradition, but genuine.
I file that away for later.
“Sit,” Granny Thorn says, pointing at a chair that’s only slightly buried under papers. “And don’t touch anything. Some of it bites.”
I sit. Johnson hops onto the table next to me, examining a jar filled with something that looks disturbingly like eyeballs.
These are eyes, he confirms. Goblin, I think. She’s been harvesting.
“You cleared Floor 1,” Granny Thorn says, settling into a chair across from me. “Alone. With a rabbit. At Level 1.”
“Level 3 by the end.”
“Still impressive.” She studies me with those sharp eyes—the same look Garrett gave me last night, the one that sees too much. “Most people who try to solo the Warrens end up as goblin food. The chief alone has killed a dozen adventurers over the years.”
“I got lucky.”
“Luck doesn’t eat faces.”
She’s looking at Johnson when she says it. He stares back, utterly unrepentant.
I like her, he says. She’s observant.
“You wanted information,” Granny Thorn continues. “About the dungeon. About why nobody’s cleared it in two hundred years.”
“The seal on Floor 4. Garrett mentioned it.”
“Garrett mentions a lot of things when he’s drunk. But yes—the seal.” She leans back in her chair, expression shifting into something more distant. “My grandmother was here when it happened. When the dungeon was sealed. She was young then, barely more than a child, but she remembered.”
“What did she remember?”
“A man. A mage, she said, though that word meant something different back then. He came to this valley alone, built a tower that doesn’t exist anymore, and spent years doing… something. No one knew what. He kept to himself. Paid for supplies in gold and never caused trouble.”
My heart is beating faster. I keep my face neutral.
“Then one day, there was an earthquake. The valley shook, the tower collapsed, and when the dust settled, the dungeon was there. Just… there. Like it had always existed.” Granny Thorn’s eyes meet mine.
“The mage was gone. No body, no trace, nothing. And the dungeon was sealed—locked tight, except for the first three floors.”
“Did anyone try to open it?”
“Everyone tried. Adventurers, scholars, even an imperial expedition once. Nothing worked. The seal responds to something specific, something nobody’s been able to identify.” She pauses. “Until you.”
The silence stretches.
She knows, Johnson says. Or suspects.
“The dungeon let you in,” Granny Thorn continues. “Not just the first three floors—all of it. I can tell. The way you talk about it, the way you look when you mention the deeper levels. You’re not guessing. You know what’s down there.”
I could lie. Could spin some story about lucky accidents or special items or anything except the truth.
But this woman has information I need. And she’s already figured out most of it anyway.
“The mage,” I say carefully. “What was his name?”
“My grandmother never knew. He didn’t offer, and no one asked.”
“It was Velthar.”
Silence.
Granny Thorn’s expression doesn’t change, but something shifts behind her eyes. Calculation. Recognition.
“That’s your name,” she says. “The name you gave at the tavern.”
“Yes.”
“And the mage who built the dungeon two hundred years ago…?”
“Also yes.”
More silence. Johnson’s ears swivel between us, tracking the conversation like a spectator at a tennis match.
Dramatic, he comments. I approve.
“You’re claiming to be two hundred years old,” Granny Thorn says flatly. “You’re claiming to have built the dungeon that’s been killing this village for generations.”
“Not claiming. Stating. There’s a difference.”
“The difference being?”
“Claims can be false. I’m not lying.”
She studies me for a long moment. Then she does something I don’t expect—she laughs. A dry, creaky sound, like hinges that haven’t been oiled in years.
“My grandmother said something about the mage,” she says when the laughter fades. “Said he had eyes that looked older than his face. Eyes that had seen too much.” Her gaze sharpens. “You have eyes like that. In a body that can’t be more than twenty-five.”
“The body’s borrowed. The eyes are original.”
Borrowed is a generous word for ‘occupied without permission,’ Johnson observes. But accurate enough.
Granny Thorn nods slowly. “Reincarnation. Soul transfer. The old stories mention such things, though I never believed them.”
“Neither did I, until it happened to me.”
“And now you’re back. Two hundred years later. In a healer’s body, at Level 1, with a rabbit that eats goblin faces.” She shakes her head. “The universe has a strange sense of humor.”
“You have no idea.”
“So.” She leans forward, elbows on knees, expression intent. “What happened? Why did you seal the dungeon? Why did you disappear? And why—” She gestures at me, at Johnson, at the general situation. “Why are you back?”
I take a breath.
This is the part where I decide how much to trust her. How much to reveal. How much of my broken, bitter history to spill onto the floor of a stranger’s cottage.
Johnson’s voice in my head, quiet: She could be useful. Village elders know things. Have connections. And she’s already demonstrated discretion—she hasn’t told anyone about the dungeon recognizing you.
He’s right. I hate that he’s right.
“I was betrayed,” I say. “By people I trusted. They killed me, stole my power, and erased my name from history. The dungeon was supposed to be my backup plan—a place to store resources, to hide research, to have something they couldn’t take.
” I pause. “I didn’t expect to need it. I didn’t expect them to… ”
The words stick in my throat.
To betray you, Johnson finishes. To prove that trust is a weakness.
“To prove that trust is a weakness,” I repeat.
Granny Thorn is quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is softer than I’ve heard it.
“Who were they? The ones who betrayed you?”
“My party. My wife. My best friend.” The words taste like ash. “They’re still alive. Still using my power to maintain their positions. The Emperor Dario. The Saint Persephone. The others.”
“The Legendary Four.”
“The Legendary Five. But they erased the fifth member. Me.”
Something crosses Granny Thorn’s face—surprise, maybe, or recognition. “The Legendary Four killed the Demon Lord two hundred years ago. Everyone knows that story.”
“Everyone knows the story they told. The true story is different.” I meet her eyes. “I killed the Demon Lord. They killed me. And now I’m back, and I’m going to take everything they stole.”
Silence.
Then Johnson hops onto my shoulder—I didn’t even see him move—and settles there like a very judgmental parrot.
Well said, he observes. Very dramatic. Eight out of ten. Would have been higher if you’d added some thunder for effect.
Granny Thorn stares at me. At us. At the Level 3 healer claiming to be a reborn Archmage with a grudge against the most powerful people in the empire.
Then she smiles.
It’s not a nice smile. It’s the smile of someone who’s seen too much, lost too much, and found something worth enjoying in the midst of it all.
“Good,” she says. “The Legendary Four have been bleeding this continent dry for two centuries. Someone should make them pay for it.”
“You believe me?”
“I believe that you believe it. And I believe that the dungeon recognizes you when it’s rejected everyone else for two hundred years. And I believe—” She gestures at Johnson. “That ordinary rabbits don’t eat faces.”
I resent the implication that I’m not ordinary, Johnson says. I’m extremely ordinary. Just with additional features.
“Will you help me?” I ask. “I need information. Resources. A base to work from while I get stronger.”
“The village could use a dungeon clearer. Someone to reduce the spawn rate, protect the people, give us a chance to survive.” She nods slowly. “You do that, and I’ll do what I can. Information, supplies, whatever a poor village can provide.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
“No it’s not.” Her eyes sharpen again. “You’re asking for allies. For people who’ll stand with you when your past catches up to your present. That’s a bigger ask than supplies.”
“Is it too big?”
She considers this. Looks at Johnson on my shoulder, at the way I’m sitting, at whatever she sees in my borrowed face with its too-old eyes.
“Ask me again when you’ve cleared more floors,” she says finally. “Prove you’re worth the risk. Then we’ll talk about alliances.”
Fair enough. More than fair, actually. She owes me nothing, and she’s offering conditional support.
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it.
“Don’t thank me yet.” She pushes herself to her feet, joints creaking.
“Now. You said you wanted information about the dungeon. I’ll tell you what my grandmother told me, and what I’ve learned since.
But first—” She moves to the pot over the fire, ladles something into a bowl.
“You’ll eat. You look like death warmed over. ”
“I literally am death warmed over.”
“Then you should be used to the look. Eat anyway.”
She hands me the bowl. It smells… not terrible. Kind of like vegetables and herbs and something meaty I don’t want to identify.
I eat.
It’s going to taste awful, Johnson warns.
It tastes awful.
I eat it anyway.
Two hours later, I leave Granny Thorn’s cottage with a head full of information and a stomach full of regret.
I told you it would taste awful.
“You did.”
And yet you ate it anyway. Twice. She refilled your bowl and you just… kept going.
“I was hungry.”
You were polite. There’s a difference. Politeness will kill you someday.