In a verged struggle for consciousness, Hero steadily pulls himself back breath after breath. The whites become grays, and the grays gain volume and depth as his sight readjusts. Just in time, he see a crippled lich amidst piles upon piles of its minions, and a figure, floating meters overhead. Hero can’t quite make it out, but whatever the figure is, it has four gazing, glowing eyes. Hero targets it as quickly as he can, but the figure is not only uninspectable, it’s untargetable, as if it weren’t even a world asset.

“P-p-p-” the lich trembles in disbelief as it tosses spell after spell at the cloaked figure. “Please, have mercy!”

The figure reaches into its flowing cloak, as black and majestic as a midnight’s sky, and pulls out a small, weirdly cozy-looking canteen, clashing instantly with the figure’s insidious composure.

“I have as much mercy for you and your kind as I have coffee, actually,” it says, its voice denoting a smooth, if squeaky, male tone; it’s like a grown man who didn’t quite drop all the way, Hero thinks.

The lich joins his four hands together in praise. “Oh, thank you!” he says as the figure begins unscrewing the top of his canteen. “You are so… so amazing! So kind! I will ser-”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” the figure interrupts as it turns the canteen atop itself to pour out its empty contents. “It seems I’ve run out of coffee.”

The lich smiles in awkward confusion. “…What do yo-”

In a flash, something floating above the figure’s shoulder flashes, and there’s a very distinct, high-pitched noise. In the next second, the lich is practically evaporated in front of the two, popping up a damage number so high, that Hero can’t see the entire numeral in one glance of his H.U.D. - he actually has to look far to his right to see the rest of the number. Understandably, the lich fully ceases to exist after a strike like that, its entire being scattered to the cosmic winds.

At that, the figure looks over to Hero.

“Well, hello there young man,” the figure says, floating over laxly as he puts away his canteen.

Hero can get a better look at him, if not by his inspection tool, then at least by sight:

The figure is masked, or at least very shiny, and appears to be wearing a rather cheap coat and tie under the midnight cloak. Floating chipperly over his right shoulder is a pure white, glowing… box, thing, with a little, squarish eye. It floats up and down like its the figure’s familiar pet, but it looks more like a cheesy paper craft than anything else. Pretty weird.

“Hello there,” Hero says, his eyes jutting between the obliterated necromancer and floating something-or-other.

“You seem a bit roughed up. You can heal, can’t you?”

Hero takes to his feet, unsure if it’ll be the last thing he does. “Ten out of ten, would bang!”

The figure snorts in humor.

“Uh, what?” Hero asks as his HP slowly restores.

“N…nothing,” the figure says. “I come to understand you’re somewhat of a hero around here, aren’t you?”

Hero readies for quick movement. “… That’s… my name, at least.”

The floating figure and his little floating box looks over to the undead in the clearing. The tiny cube makes a high pitched, distinctively cute beeping sounds as it looks over to the figure in address. “You’re catching on,” the figure seems to say to the cube in a pleasant tone before turning back to Hero. “I simply figured that was the case, seeing as you were trying to take on those undead and save your village.”

Hero begins to relax. “Yeah. I had to defend my father. He was trapped inside… Shit!” Hero exclaims, turning and leaping at but 15% of his HP back to the homestead.

The figure whistles as if impressed, seeing Hero nearly blink out. “That’s the one, alright,” the figure says between himself and the cube as the two watch Hero dash into his house. “Target sighted~.”

Back at the house, Hero swings around to find his father, breaking, but roughed up and unconscious. Hero smiles in relief, and easily places his heavy dad upon his bed; he weighs nothing to him now.

“Cute pop,” the figure says, floating over Hero’s shoulder. Hero startles over in surprise. Even with his enormously-high stats, Hero didn’t even hear him coming, as if he was simply “inserted” into the room.

“Eh… uh, thanks.”

“I assume he’ll be okay? Not that I could do anything about that, you understand.”

Hero shrugs, wondering if the figure really is implying that he can’t use healing magic. “Yeah, I got him,” Hero says as he recasts his healing spell to top off his father, winning another chuckle from the floating figure.

“So, I assume everyone else has left?”

“What?”

“The village, I mean.”

Hero gets a rightfully-creepy vibe. “They should be back any minute now that the invasion’s ended… that’s weird.”

As if expectantly, the figure hums. “What is?”

“His HP, I can’t max it out, it’s missing one point.”

The masked one sighs. “Well, being cursed by the Dragon God, that’s sort of to be expected.”

“Wh-what?”

The figure clears his throat as if to quote an official text. “The curse of Exeranoth, the greatest dragon of this world.

Causes the victim’s max HP to decline based on one percentile per hour.”

Hero flinches and turns back to his father. Inspecting the dwarf, he only now notices the small status-effect box under the character portrait.

The figure stares at Hero with his four, gleaming lenses. It descends to the floor so that it’s standing upright. Hero looks over in mild surprise; the figure is way shorter than he thought, like 5’5, or something - a manlet. “I assume you’d like to know more?” He removes his hood, revealing a shiny helmet, encompassing his entire skull. “I know the cure, which I’d

imagine would be in your best interests as well.”

Hero checks his own status effects. Sure enough, [Exeranoth’s Gaze] is also on him, with a kill time of ninety nine hours to go.

“Tell me everything you know,” Hero says bluntly, instantly enthused with a hunger for dragon steaks.

The figure hums. “Frankly,” he says. “I’m not all that interested in explaining all of this to you. The short of it is that this dragon’s cursed you both, probably because you killed so many of his minions. The curse will kill you in roughly four days and four hours, unless you stop the curse.”

Hero’s eyes are clear in focus. “And how is that done?”

“Killing Exeranoth.”

Of course, Hero could have guessed that easily enough, but the confirmation is nice. “How do I get to him?”

The figure laughs. “The way is long, as we must follow the ‘narrative’.”

Hero squints an eye. “We?”

“I’ve been waiting for you, actually. I also wish to slay Exeranoth, so I’ll be going with you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Do I need a reason to remove a tyrannical beast?”

Hero shrugs. “Guess not… and why do you need my help?”

The figure offers his hand. “Because you are the hero, after all. Name’s Kell.”

Hero looks at the metallic hand for a moment, and takes it up; whatever Kell is, his name is girly as hell, and his hand is miraculously cold. “Hero,” the lad introduces.

“Name, and title?” Kell asks.

“…Yeah, I guess it is.”

“Alright, Hero, ready yourself to go and say goodbye to your father. We’ll move for the capitol as soon as we’re able.”

Hero nods, and turns to gather his things. He leaves a note for his father, promising his return.