Chapter 4 THE FUNERAL PLAYERS WALKED THROUGH

Three days. That’s how long they waited. Not because of any deep philosophy, just because that’s how long it took for news to travel from village to village, for old friends and far-off family to put aside whatever they were doing and start walking.

People did come. Not a big crowd, just ones and twos, showing up on the second day with dust on their boots. They had this quiet about them, the kind that comes from having too much time to think on the road. Drev’s daughter arrived from the eastern settlement, her husband and kids in tow. His son came down from the northern watchpost tall, with his mother’s face and his father’s steady hands. He moved through Millhaven like someone who hadn’t let himself feel it yet.

Zaren watched all this from the forge. He didn’t go say anything. He just didn’t know what there was to say, and small talk never came easy to him.

So instead, he worked. Stayed up late the night before the burial, not because any work actually needed doing, but because he needed it. His hands wanted something real to hold. He shaped the grave marker out of iron, kept it plain, just Drev’s name, the years, and the dignity that comes from making something with care. Iron was Zaren’s thing. It was all he had to give.

The morning of the burial was cold. Not biting cold, not winter yet, but the kind that makes you remember winter’s coming, that the grain’s already gone, and the ground’s about to get harder. Forty people stood on the hilltop cemetery above the village. Forty, out of four hundred. The ones who could spare the time from scraping by, or maybe the ones who just couldn’t stay away, because Drev was someone you always showed up for.

Elder Soreth led the ceremony. She was seventy-one and had buried more of Millhaven than anyone else left. Her voice slipped out with the old words, calm and steady, like this was simply what her voice was for.

“We return what was borrowed,” she said. “We mark what was given. We hold what remains.”

Those words were ancient, older than the village, maybe older than the language itself. Zaren hung back near the edge, holding his hat, letting the words run over him. Drev’s daughter stood close by the grave, her children pressed up against her. His son lingered a bit apart, his jaw set hard. The kids had picked the offering flowers, little wild blooms, yellow and white, already wilting at the edges.

Soreth had reached the third verse when Zaren caught something.

Not with his ears, the interface tipped him off first. Six player icons sliding south over the ridge, cycling through patrol route C. Pretty standard: a loop through the woods and out towards the mountain pass. All of them mid-levels. Nothing special, nothing dangerous.

Except this time, the patrol route ran straight through the cemetery.

Zaren looked up, Soreth kept reading, Drev’s daughter still gripped her kids. Then he saw them, the six players, mismatched gear, chatting and moving with that casual step you get when you’ve run the same route a hundred times.

They barely noticed. The first one swerved a little to dodge the mourners, but didn’t even glance at the grave. Didn’t bother to lower his voice. The second one walked right between Drev's daughter and the plot, slicing her off from her father’s resting place. The third stepped right on the flowers. He didn’t even look down.

Drev’s daughter made a sound. It wasn’t a scream, nothing loud just that sharp, private noise that spills out when something inside breaks in public.

The players just kept going. Fourth, fifth, sixth, passing among the gathered mourners like grass through fingers. Forty seconds, and they’d cut across and moved on, chatting, patrol unchanged.

The real quiet came after.

Forty villagers stood there, cold, staring at the crushed flowers, a new emptiness between the grave and the daughter. Zaren felt it, the shock of being reminded, once again, that their grief didn’t register as anything important.

Soreth kept going. She never broke rhythm, never mentioned the players, never paused to let the anger settle in. She kept the old words coming, fourth verse, fifth, the final blessing never stopping, never hurrying, never granting the interruption any ground. Her hands stayed steady, her eyes on the grave. Seventy-one years old, and she wasn’t about to let six immortals steal the ceremony from Drev’s family.

Zaren watched her. He thought: That’s one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.

They filled the grave. Planted the iron marker, Zaren’s handiwork at its head. Drev of Millhaven. This place felt solid. The kids laid new flowers, but the old ones sat mashed into the earth.

Afterwards, folks drifted off the way people do, slow and hesitant, the odd tension of not wanting to be the first or the last to leave. Zaren stayed, he always did.

Pip showed up, quiet as ever. Nine years old, a shadow who decided to become a boy, eyes wide with the kinds of questions kids get at funerals.

“Zaren,” he said.

“Mm?”

“Why didn’t they stop?”

He didn’t sound mad, just puzzled, like he couldn’t figure out why the adults around him weren’t explaining the rules he thought were set in stone.

Zaren looked at the gravesite, the flowers, the line on the ridge where the players disappeared. “They see things differently,” he said.

It was the truth, but it felt like the emptiest, most useless truth he’d ever given.

Pip nodded, thinking it over. “What do we look like?”

Out of the corner of Zaren’s eye, the interface blinked a notification about a player levelling up out east. A tiny celebration in another world. Somewhere that had nothing to do with death or graves or a boy who just wanted things to make sense.

“Background,” Zaren said softly.

Pip watched him, then stared out at the grave, then the ridge. “Oh.” Zaren could see him tucking that answer away, storing it for later, for the day he’d really understand.

Pip’s mother called, and he went. Zaren lingered.

He stuck around until Drev’s kids finally left together, heading down the hill with slow steps, the daughter leaning on her brother, the children shuffling after. Tomorrow, they’d return to their lives. The iron marker would stand through winter, through spring, and whatever came after.

Zaren didn’t leave until the very end. Then he walked back down the hill by himself, the interface humming out of sight, route C still lit up on his mental map. They’d run it again in three days.

He’d be there.