Willow Swiftquiver
the Stonewalker
Vorloi – Fighter
Once chosen to save a dying world, Willow now drifts through Gloom—silent, watchful, and cursed to turn to stone without warning. Betrayed by many, trusted by few, he survives with bow, blade, and the haunting notes of a mandolin he built from bone and memory. He speaks little, but his songs say enough.
“He fell from the light. He walks in stone. He sings so others don’t forget.”
The Weight of a Name
In the Age of Gloom, where truth hides beneath stone and trust is rarer than silverroot, some stories are carried not by words, but by glances—uneasy, uncertain, tinged with the kind of discomfort people feel when something is too strange to be hated, and too sad to be feared.
One of those stories wears the shape of a man, though he doesn’t always look like one. His name is Willow. His eyes see farther than most. His silence is not chosen—it’s grown over time, like moss on a forgotten grave. People avoid touching him, not just out of fear, but out of guilt.
Because many have tried to own him. And all have failed.
No chains can hold stone.
Of Songs and Shattered Skies
Willow was not born in this world.
He came from a place where the sky bled fire and ancient ruins whispered spells that could stir the dead. His homeland, once vibrant with magic, now lies gasping under the weight of endless war. But even as the last embers of hope dimmed, He came—an entity older than the myths, brilliant and unfathomable. Light wrapped in voice. Knowledge cloaked in urgency.
“There is no more time,” the being said.
Willow was chosen—not because he was the strongest, nor the noblest, but because he listened. Because when everything else collapsed, he still believed that a song could hold back the dark.
He was shown another world. This world. A land strangled by silence. Void of gods. Starved of magic. The leech that drank from his homeland without ever knowing it. If nothing was done, both worlds would wither.
And so, the being gave him a gift.
And cursed him with it.
A shard of pure creation. A spark of the old song. It burned through Willow’s body, engraving its will into his bones. And when the fire faded, he found himself here—in the underworlds of Gloom.
Alone.
The spark was gone. The path home, severed. All that remained was the task.
First Steps in Gloom
The first days were worse than war.
Gloom had no sun. No color. No music. The air tasted like regret and dust. The people—if they could be called that—were twisted by need, by hunger, by centuries of silence.
He awoke in a stone basin beneath a ruined viaduct, cold and alone. The spark that had brought him was gone. In its place, a hollowness, like an instrument without strings.
They thought he was a relic. A rare artifact. They argued over what he might be worth. Some thought he was enchanted. Others believed him to be cursed. Eventually, he was sold at a back-alley market as a ‘divine relic.’ When the next owner failed to unlock any secrets from him, they tried to trade him off, then threw him into a river when no buyers came. He resurfaced days later, washed ashore and forgotten, hidden among reeds and broken crates. No one came looking. He took that as a lesson. From that moment on, he learned.
He stayed hidden. Watched from shadows. He learned the local tongue. The coin. The maps. And eventually, the bow.
It wasn’t the weapon of his people. But it felt right. Precise. Distant. Unobtrusive. Like him.
He scavenged old shafts, crafted heads from bone, and trained in silence. No teacher. No mentor. Just trial, error, and necessity.
The Traveler's Mandolin
But music—music was different. That he remembered.
Back home, before the fire, he had been a minstrel in twilight taverns and refugee camps. His voice was soft, but his fingers danced. The mandolin had always been his companion. Not for crowds, but for connection. For memory.
In Gloom, there were no instruments. So he built one.
A traveler’s mandolin. Fitting for someone who never stayed. He used bone for the neck, metal scraps for frets, and thin wire strung from old market traps. The body was minimal—just enough wood to hold resonance, salvaged from a burned cart axle. Every piece could be disassembled, folded, or hidden.
He strung it. Tuned it by ear. And when the first clear note rang out in a tunnel, he cried.
It became his anchor. His ritual. Each night, when the stone sleep threatened to claim him, he played. Not for others. For himself. For memory. For the world he might never see again.
Some say they’ve heard him through the cracks of collapsed tunnels. A voice like wind, strings like mourning. A song that makes you want to remember things you never knew.
The Archer With No Banner
Willow is not known by many, but those who have fought beside him remember one thing: he never misses twice.
His arrows fly with the certainty of someone who must hit—because failure means more than death. It means letting both worlds collapse.
In battle, he moves like a whisper—too soft to notice until it’s too late. And when blades are drawn, his daggers slip into gaps in armor like sorrow into old wounds.
He does not fight for glory. He does not fight for vengeance.
He fights because he must.
But somewhere, behind the flint in his gaze and the granite in his skin, there is still a voice. A voice that sings not to be heard—but to remember what was lost.
A Stone that Remembers
He keeps no companions long. Not because he chooses solitude, but because the world chooses it for him.
Trust comes slow. Friendship slower.
And yet, for those few who endure his silence long enough, Willow reveals something unexpected—not warmth, exactly, but harmony. A soul that has been cracked, but not broken. A being shaped by betrayal, but not devoured by it.
He still believes in music.
He still believes in beauty.
And though his body may turn to stone, his spirit does not.
In the deep places of the world, where gods have forgotten to look, he stands.
Not as a hero. Not as a legend.
But as a bridge between two dying songs.
Final Words
Willow is not seeking redemption.
He is redemption, walking.
He is the melody that refuses to be silenced. The stone that remembers the shape of wind. The boy who believed in light, even as the world turned grey.
And in a land where even hope feels counterfeit, he still tunes his mandolin in the dark.
Because somewhere, someone might still be listening.
And maybe—just maybe—
that will be enough.
Characters
Garlak
Trista
Willow
