The Cursed Extra

"You don’t get to mourn what you murdered."

***

The question hung in the smoke-filled air like a blade waiting to fall.

Rhys found himself leaning forward despite his injuries. Caught up in this strange psychological duel that had replaced the physical battle he’d expected.

His training told him to use this moment to escape. To drag himself through the tunnel toward safety while the creature was distracted.

But his curiosity kept him rooted to the spot.

He needed to see how this ended.

The shaman’s massive frame shuddered.

When it spoke again, its voice held the broken cadence of someone grasping at half-remembered dreams. The rage was gone entirely now. Replaced by something that sounded almost childlike in its desperate hope.

"I... I remember fragments. The opening notes of the Spring Awakening. The way the earth would pulse in time with the melody, like a heartbeat. The warmth that would spread through the soil as the first flowers pushed toward the sun. But when I try to sing them now..."

"They turn to ash in your mouth," the newcomer finished.

His voice held no sympathy. No comfort. Just the cold statement of fact.

"Because you are ash. A burned-out husk wearing the shape of power you never earned and can’t properly use. You’re not a monster, Ghel-thak-mor. You’re not even a villain."

He tilted his head.

"You’re just sad. A sad, broken thing that’s been running from its own guilt for three centuries and calling it strength."

The words hit like hammer blows.

Each syllable carried weight that went beyond sound. Struck at something fundamental in the creature’s essence.

The shaman’s legs buckled.

It crashed to its knees in the tunnel’s muck. The sound echoed off the walls. Wet. Heavy. Final.

Not the controlled descent of a warrior taking a knee in defeat. The collapse of something that had finally reached the end of its strength.

The end of its reasons to keep standing.

"Please," it whispered.

The word carried centuries of accumulated pain. All the lives consumed. All the power stolen. All the centuries of violence and fear. None of it mattered now.

Just that one small word.

Barely louder than a breath.

"Please, just... let me remember one song. One melody before I fade. I’ve forgotten so much. I’ve lost so much. My mother’s voice. My brothers’ names. The color of the grove in autumn."

Its voice cracked.

"But if I could just hear the Spring Awakening one more time... if I could just remember what it felt like to make something grow instead of destroying it..."

Rhys felt his heart clench despite himself.

This was the creature that had tortured Jorik. That had been seconds away from tearing him apart. The blood on its claws was still wet.

But now, stripped of its rage and pretense, it sounded like nothing more than a broken old man begging for a glimpse of better days.

A grandfather dying in a cold bed. Reaching for memories of a youth he could barely recall.

The newcomer studied the kneeling form for a long moment.

His strange eyes reflected torchlight like polished coins. The smoke swirled around him. Framed him in grey and shadow.

When he spoke, his voice held the same casual tone he’d maintained throughout the encounter.

As if nothing had changed.

As if the creature’s desperate plea had meant nothing at all.

"No."

The single word fell into the silence like a stone into still water.

The shaman’s head snapped up. Hope and desperation warring in its burning gaze. It stared at the grey-robed figure with the expression of a condemned man who had just been told his execution would proceed on schedule.

"No?" it repeated. As if the concept was foreign. As if refusal was a language it had forgotten how to speak.

"You made your choice three centuries ago."

The newcomer brushed dust from his grey robes with casual indifference. The motion was almost insulting in its mundanity. As if the broken creature before him wasn’t worth maintaining eye contact with.

"You chose power over beauty. Consumption over creation. Fear over love. The songs you want to remember? You killed them when you devoured the last throat that could sing them properly. They died with your people."

His voice dropped.

"And you were the one holding the knife. You don’t get to mourn what you murdered."

The shaman’s expression crumbled entirely.

Whatever remained of the proud beast that had dominated this tunnel, whatever echoes of the gentle grove-keeper it had once been, all of it shattered in that moment.

The rage that had sustained it for centuries. The hunger that had driven it forward. The fear that had kept it moving.

All of it flickered and died like a candle caught in a sudden wind.

What remained was something that looked almost pitifully small despite its monstrous size.

A husk.

A shell.

A monument to wasted potential and wrong choices.

"I was trying to save them," it whispered. The words came out broken. Barely coherent. "The humans were coming. The armies. The fires. I needed power to protect my people. I needed—"

"You needed an excuse."

The newcomer’s voice was gentle now. Almost kind.

But the kindness held a cruelty that Rhys found more disturbing than open hostility.

"Protection was just the lie you told yourself to make the first murder easier. Your master trusted you. He called you his greatest student. And when you opened his throat in the sacred grove, you told yourself it was for your people. After that, it was just momentum and hunger. Each kill a little easier than the last. Each excuse a little thinner. Until you couldn’t even remember why you started."

This is worse than cruelty.

Rhys watched with growing unease.

The psychological dismantling was thorough and surgical. Every word landing exactly where it would cause the most damage. But there was something cold about it that made his skin crawl.

The grey-robed figure wasn’t showing mercy or seeking justice.

He was simply stating facts with the detached interest of someone cataloging an insect’s anatomy.

There was no anger in his voice. No righteousness. No satisfaction.

Just observation.

Just the clinical notation of a specimen’s decline.

He’s not enjoying this. He’s not even particularly interested. It’s just... cold.

The shaman remained on its knees. Massive shoulders shaking with silent sobs that sounded like grinding stone.

It had become something pathetic and broken. All its accumulated power rendered meaningless by a handful of carefully chosen words.

The monster that had seemed unstoppable was now just a very old creature crying in the mud. Mourning a life it had thrown away so long ago that it could barely remember what it had lost.

"Now then."

The newcomer clasped his hands behind his back again. The shift in his tone was immediate and jarring. Businesslike. Almost cheerful.

"I believe we were in the middle of something before this little history lesson. You were about to kill my... associate here."

He gestured vaguely toward Rhys without looking at him.

"Something about demonstrating true power, wasn’t it? Educating the younger generation about their place in the natural order?"

His smile widened.

"Weren’t you going to show me what real power looks like?"

The question snapped the shaman’s head up.

For a moment, confusion clouded its features. As if it had forgotten where it was and what it had been doing. The tunnel. The smoke. The wounded student against the wall. All of it seemed to register anew.

"You..." it snarled. But the sound lacked conviction.

The fire was still there in its eyes. But it burned lower now. Guttering like a candle reaching the end of its wick.

Its claws extended as it struggled back to its feet. Mud dripped from its massive knees.

"You think your words make you powerful? You think knowing my past gives you strength? You think you can break me with stories and memories and—"

"I think," the newcomer said, stepping back with the same unhurried confidence he’d shown throughout the encounter, "that you’re about to do exactly what I expect you to do."

His voice was soft.

Almost sympathetic.

"Because despite three centuries of accumulated experience. Despite all that stolen power and consumed potential. You’re still just a frightened child lashing out at a world that wouldn’t bend to your will."

He spread his hands.

"You’ll attack because that’s all you know how to do anymore. The songs are gone. The gentleness is gone. All that’s left is the violence. So yes, by all means."

His smile turned sharp.

"Show me what you’ve become."

The shaman let out a roar that shook dust from the tunnel ceiling.

The sound was deafening. Primal. Carrying all the rage and grief and broken hope of three centuries compressed into a single terrible cry.

Its massive form coiled like a spring. Every muscle tensing for a charge that would crush the grey-robed figure against the stone walls. The claws that had torn through Jorik’s flesh extended to their full length.

"Predictable," the newcomer said.

And smiled.