Chapter 17: The End
The sound of the gold cup hitting the floor was like a goddamn gong.
It echoed in the dead silence of the Great Hall.
It was a final, flashy sound effect before the server shuts down.
Every single NPC—and me—was staring at Gandalf Reynolds.
The broken scout was still hugging his arm, shaking so hard I was worried he’d glitch through the floor.
Princess Ilyra was frozen, her finger still pointing, her angry question hanging in the air like an unskippable dialogue box.
"What the fuck is going on!?"
Gandalf didn’t look at her.
He didn’t look at the scout.
He didn’t even look at me, the handsome new main character.
His gaze, heavy with that ’I’ve seen some serious crap’ soldier vibe, slowly lifted to meet the King’s.
It was one of those silent, man-to-man things where they say a whole paragraph with their eyebrows.
A bug report being filed with zero words.
A confession that the last patch was a total failure.
Then, he spoke.
His voice was a whisper, but it cut through the silence like a legendary-grade dagger.
"Your Majesty..."
He took a deep breath.
"The scout... he confirms it."
The King’s face, which already looked like a dried-up apple, seemed to shrivel even more.
The old dude already read the patch notes.
But the rest of us hadn’t.
The whole room held its breath, waiting for the nerf bat to fall.
Gandalf’s eyes were hollow.
"The tremors," he said, his voice dropping so low I had to strain to hear, "They are not earthquakes."
A gasp went through the hall.
Okay, big reveal.
If not earthquakes, then what?
My brain started running the numbers.
Magic apocalypse?
Some kind of super-weapon?
A world boss spawning?
I was wrong.
It was so much dumber.
"They are footsteps," Gandalf whispered.
The words just hung there.
Footsteps.
The idea was so simple, and so completely insane, that for a second my brain just blue-screened.
Then it rebooted, and the horror patch installed.
The silence broke.
Some lady screamed.
Another noble started ugly-crying.
Prince Caleth, that little trash mob, whimpered and literally crawled backward, trying to get away from the plot.
My own blood went cold.
Footsteps?
Holy crap, what kind of raid boss has a footstep you can feel from miles away?
My eyes met Yael’s.
Her face was a mask of pissed-off curiosity.
She was scared.
Yeal was actually scared.
Gandalf wasn’t done with the exposition dump.
"He mentioned a name from the lore books," he said, his voice cracking.
"The Unremembered."
He looked at the King.
"Vex’s giants."
At that name, King Eldros flinched like he’d just taken a crit to the face.
The Queen made a little noise and covered her mouth, her ice-queen composure finally shattered.
"They are taller than the city walls," Gandalf said, his voice totally flat now, like an NPC reciting its lines.
"He saw them crossing the northern plains."
"They weren’t conquering the villages, Your Majesty."
A new kind of awfulness crept into his voice.
"They were... consuming them."
"The people, the buildings, the land itself."
"He said they were erasing them, like deleting the assets from the game world."
The party was officially over.
This was the real quest line.
A main scenario where giants walked around eating entire zones.
And then, the Princess moved.
Ilyra, who’d been stuck in a freeze-frame, finally snapped.
Her face was pale, her eyes huge with a terror that had burned away all her haughty princess buffs.
She didn’t run to daddy the King.
She didn’t run to Gandalf the Guard Captain.
She ran straight for me.
She scrambled over an overturned chair, tearing her fancy dress, and grabbed my sleeve.
Her grip was surprisingly strong.
"Commander," she breathed, her voice a shaky mess, "You’ll protect us, right?"
"You killed the Ogre."
"You can kill them, too."
I just stared at her.
This was the same princess who was trying to use me for political EXP an hour ago.
Now she was clinging to me like I was a high-level escort quest she couldn’t fail.
My one stupid victory just made me the designated meat shield for the entire royal family.
Crap.
This was a major, unwanted aggro pull.
Over by the throne, Gandalf saw it.
He saw the princess run to me.
For a second, his stoic soldier mask slipped.
His eyes narrowed.
And I saw it.
Jealousy.
It was the look of a guy whose main character status just got stolen by a noob.
He hid it fast, but I saw it.
Yael saw it too.
She just raised one perfect eyebrow.
Before I could even think of a dialogue option to get out of this, it happened again.
As if on cue.
The ground started to shake.
This wasn’t some little rumble.
This was the real deal, a violent shudder that cracked the marble floor.
Plates and cups went flying.
A huge chandelier swayed like crazy, its crystals playing a panicked, off-key tune.
But this time, there was a sound.
A sound that came through the floor, through my bones.
THUD.
A deep, heavy impact that vibrated in my chest.
A pause.
Dead silence.
THUD.
Closer.
The sound had a direction.
It was coming from the north.
It was coming for us.
The entire hall froze.
Everyone looked up at the huge windows on the northern wall.
The two moons were shining up there, one purple, one a gross green.
Then, a shadow fell.
It wasn’t a cloud.
It was huge.
Absolute.
It blotted out the sky.
It was blocking the freaking moons.
THUD.
Louder now.
Closer.
The whole damn tree-city shook.
It was the sound of our doom.
Walking towards us.
One.
Step.
At.
A.
Time.
<System Warning>