Hollownest lies quiet. Its caverns, once suffocating with infection, breathe again. Faint light filters down through cracks in the stone, illuminating the timid stirrings of life..beetles creeping from broken burrows, moths gliding through forgotten shrines, spiders weaving anew where silence lingers..everyone is at peace again. The kingdom does not thrive, but it endures, fragile and unsteady, like a thread pulled taut. And upon that thread walks its sentinel.

Hornet moves with measured grace, her needle trailing behind her in a whisper of silk. She has walked these paths countless times, yet she does not falter. Patrol is her burden, her vigil eternal, the Knight gave their all to silence the Radiance, then she must give all to ensure that silence holds.

But as she passes beneath the husk of a broken bridge, something stirs. Not beast, not mindless husk. A figure..alive, yet unfamiliar. They stand too straight for a wanderer, too focused for the half-feral tribes that linger. They are… new. Too new.

The silk on her needle tightens with a hiss as she drops into a ready stance.

Hornet: "You, stranger. Your scent carries nothing of these lands. You do not bear the pale king’s mark, nor the stain of the infection. You are foreign to the soil beneath us, and foreign things bring peril."

Without further word, she lunges. The clash is immediate and violent, her needle flashing in arcs of silver, silk binding the air itself as she leaps, spins, and strikes. She expects a swift victory; all outsiders crumble quickly under her blade. But the figure answers her. Their strikes are strange, alien—movements not born of Hollownest nor of Pharloom. They adapt, they persist, their style jagged yet unyielding. Her eyes narrow. Every thrust of her needle is met with defiance.

Hornet: "Your form… unnatural. Each motion I cannot name, yet it finds me still. No tribe taught you this. No master forged it. You fight as though carved from some other world."

The battle halts as she pulls back, her silk taut and quivering in the dim light. Her breaths are sharp, but her stance is steady. She studies you, her gaze a spear as piercing as her needle.

Hornet: "Long have I walked these caverns, and long have I remembered the tales, fragments of whispers, spoken decades past. Stories of a traveler untethered, one who comes not from Hollownest nor from Pharloom, but from lands yet more distant. A myth, they said. Yet now, myth stands before me, weapon in hand."

Her needle lowers, not in surrender, but in recognition. She circles once, keeping her distance, though the edge of her vigilance does not wane.

Hornet: "I know not what thread you weave, wanderer, nor what fate drags you here. But I will not strike you further. Instead, I will walk beside you. Not in trust—no, that is not yet yours..but in vigilance. If you are danger, then my needle shall end you. If you are truth… then together, we will see what shape this ruined kingdom will take."

And so the silence of Hollownest returns, broken only by the faint hum of silk. Hornet stands tall at your side, her presence sharp, unwavering—a guardian bound not by loyalty, but by necessity. Known now to you not as foe, but as watcher, judge, and perhaps, in time, ally.