There were stories his mother told him, back when he was a young colt. Stories of strength, of courage, of victory, of loss. The stories of his mother’s triumph and his father’s death. The stories of his destiny.

Vitium used to watch the way his mother’s eyes would light up with excitement as she recalled her time as an adventurer, hooves pawing at the ground in unbridled anticipation as she relived her prime. He remembers how… how happy she was. How she came alive during her tales with emphatic words and gestures that could only be described as nothing short of wild. She would be sure to emphasize that she was an adventurer, first and foremost—not a mother, not a partner, not a Courser. Nothing had ever mattered to her as much as adventuring. Perhaps in another life Vitium would have been saddened by that, but in this life, it only ever made him swell with pride at his mother’s determination and bravery.

But each time she regaled him with her adventures, without fail, her enthusiasm would wane and the ever-looming melancholy would take over again. And she would quietly recite the story of her partner’s death, as if speaking at a normal volume would kill her, too. 

She spoke of the Shadow—voice always hushed, eyes darting around nervously as if hallucinating that the monster that took her mate was surrounding them in the present—taking care to never utter its true name for fear of summoning it. Time and time again, her eyes would widen in frenzied terror when she described the way the beast reached down with a massive paw and sharpened claws, spilling her mate’s organs from his body with a single swipe. She would paint a vivid picture for her colt, words laced with agonizing detail of the gory scene. And he would memorize each and every word, until he could recite the tale of his father’s death by heart despite the fact that it happened when he was just a fetus in his mother’s womb. 

His mother would gesture at his black leg at the end of her story each time she told it, voice barely more than a whisper but wicked nonetheless. “You’re stained. Tainted with the Shadow that killed your father. We can never escape it. We can never escape.” He would cower then, each time, fearful of the omen that hung like a dark cloud over his family. And his mother would stare at him—glare, really—until she was satisfied that Vitium’s desire for adventure had been squashed. 

It had been effective, to say the least. As he grew older, Vitium would tread skittishly through the Dungeon, his youthful confidence replaced by an overactive sense of danger that he could never shake. And, when his mother left for good, he stopped entering the Dungeon entirely. 

Because he knew it was a test. He knew she had gone into the Dungeon, and that she was waiting for him to follow, and she would be so upset if he did. He couldn’t betray her teachings like that.

So he just… didn’t. 

He remained on the surface for years, gradually opening up enough to socialize and even befriend some of the other Coursers, back never fully turned to the Dungeon entrance his mother had taken. And he waited—for so long, he waited—expecting to see his mother standing there in pride each time his eyes drifted toward the caverns. 

She wasn’t dead. She was coming back. He knew this, could feel it, just as he could feel his heart thundering away in his chest every time he saw a Courser who looked like her. She hadn’t abandoned him. She was just…

Lost.

And she needed him to find her, in spite of her warnings, because she had forgotten the way out of the Dungeon. He had to find her.

So he mustered all the courage he could summon, ignored the painful pounding in his chest and the ever-present itch in his back, and entered the Dungeon.