Revi didn't usually stick around starter zones this long.
Not because she hated them. They just weren't built to hold her interest.The story ran out too fast. The NPCs repeated themselves. The quest chains were shallow and obvious. Kill five wolves. Gather herbs. Move on.
But this one?
Stonehollow?
It was different.
Or maybe… he was.
She sat on the ledge of the bell tower, legs dangling over the edge, white-gloved fingers drumming quietly on her knee.
The view from here wasn't spectacular — mostly moss-covered roofs and crooked fences. But from this height, she could see movement that others missed.
A stableboy racing through the alley with a red cloth tied around his neck.
A guard limping as he passed the well, stopping to breathe with his hand on the stone.
A recruit — that recruit — moving through the square without a waypoint, without an icon, without a single damn thing flashing on his UI.
Just walking.
Just… being.
She squinted.
He was talking to a shopkeeper now. Not trading. Just talking.
The old woman laughed at something. Revi hadn't even known that NPC had a laugh file.
He handed her something — a vial? A scrap of cloth? She tucked it into her apron like it mattered.
Revi leaned back against the stone, frowning.
None of this made sense.
She pulled up her overlay.
The bounty listing was still live.
Target: Kiriti– Status: Unaligned– Threat Level: System-Flagged– Reward: 25,000G– Allegiance: Unknown– Location: Probable — Stonehollow
Normally, that would've been enough to trigger a full guild sweep.
But no one wanted to risk a system penalty — not yet.
And Revi?
She wasn't here to collect.Not yet.
She was here to understand.
"Why him?" she whispered aloud.
No one answered.
But the bell beside her, long silent, gave a tiny creak in the wind.
She froze.
Then turned her gaze toward the chapel.
The flame in the window was still burning.
Not decorative.
Not part of any quest line she'd ever seen.
Just… burning.
Down below, Kiriti stepped into the apothecary again. The same one she saw him enter two days ago.
And the door opened before he reached it.
NPCs didn't usually do that.
She narrowed her eyes.
"What are you?"
Meanwhile, two zones south, in the rootline server behind Blackmarch, a new set of players was preparing.
Heavy armor. Maxed gear. Stat-tracking interface overlays. Not the social kind.
The hunting kind.
The "clear it if it moves" kind.
And one of them — a player named Gerrik — studied the name on the bounty again.
Kiriti.
He'd seen it three times now.
In three zones.
Always near a strange thread activation.Always where NPCs started acting too real.
"I want to see him before we kill him," Gerrik muttered.
And no one laughed.
Back in Stonehollow, Kiriti stepped out of Marla's shop, holding a satchel filled with nothing valuable — not in system terms.
Just dried leaves.
Marla had called them "memory root."Said they were used in tea during funerals.
Not for grief.For remembering.
He turned toward the chapel, unaware of the eyes watching from the tower.
And Revi, watching him go, didn't move.
Didn't follow.
But when she finally stood, she pulled open her system messages.
Selected one.
[SEND PRIVATE MESSAGE] → KIRITI
And typed:
You're not a bug. You're something else. Aren't you?
She hovered over the [Send] button.
Then closed it.
Not yet.
The sun dipped low behind the trees.
The candle in the chapel window flickered.
And in the center of the square, for the first time in over a year, three children gathered to play catch — without being prompted.
📄 [SYSTEM NOTE: Player Revi – Observation Level 3 Reached]NPC Affinity: Passive NeutralAnchor Thread: "Watcher's Mirror"
📄 [Server Region Note: Kiriti Presence Detected]NPCs now respond to his approach with autonomous modifiers
Next Risk Tier Projection: 3 Days