Kira vanished.
One silver richer — and then gone.
No note. No farewell. Not even a “thank you” for the soup Tollis reheated.
She walked out the inn’s crooked door with that cool, no-nonsense confidence, and like the last page of a lost chapter — she just disappeared.
I didn’t even notice until Adam slammed open our room door and shouted:
“Where is she?”
I blinked, mid-scribble, halfway through redlining a level layout for Dark Tower’s shadow crypt.
“Where’s who?”
“Kira! Our voice! Our rogue! The cornerstone of the narrative identity we’ve been meticulously constructing!”
“I—I thought she went out for air or something?”
“She’s been gone four hours, Abel! Four!”
He spun, yanked open a drawer, and chucked a pouch of coins into my chest.
“Find her. Bribe her. Drag her back. I don’t care. She’s perfect, and I will not settle for ‘Dave the Enchanter’ as our fallback.”
“What’s in the pouch?”
“Your search budget. Try not to spend it all on fried snake skewers. GO!”
Then he literally kicked me out of the room.
***
Zirhan was different at night.
The heat softened, but the air thickened with smoke, sweat, and the scent of roasted spices.
Shadows moved faster.
Alleyways whispered.
The lanterns above each street glowed dim orange — flickering like half-forgotten dreams.
And I was sprinting through it all, clutching a coin pouch like a man possessed.
I tried the obvious places first: street performers near the water plaza, taverns with open mics, anywhere that might attract someone with a dramatic streak and a good speaking voice.
No luck.
Then I tried less obvious places: the pit-fighting arena (just in case), a burned-out temple (you never know), and even the alley where Adam once bought “enchanted cucumber water” (spoiler: not enchanted, not water, definitely not cucumber).
Nothing.
I asked barkeeps.
Got shrugs.
I asked guards.
Got sneers.
I even bribed a suspicious lizard merchant with two silvers just for a chance that he saw a woman in leather armor.
He showed me a rock shaped like a woman instead.
Desperate, sweaty, and nearly out of hope, I staggered through the market toward the only place I hadn’t tried.
The Adventurer’s Guild.
Zirhan’s Adventurer’s Guild was less “guildhall” and more “giant, angry barn someone slapped a crest onto.”
It leaned sideways, creaked in the wind, and had scorch marks on the main doors.
The inside was somehow worse.
The place stank of wet iron and oil, sweat and unwashed gear.
The floor was stained.
The ceiling was low.
The quest board was absolutely plastered with notices — kill this, fetch that, “lost cat may be a demon, please confirm.”
The desk clerk gave me a long look as I stepped in, covered in dust and desperation.
“Can I help you?”
She asked.
“I’m looking for Kira. Leather armor. Dark hair. Rogue-ish voice. Probably glared at everyone.”
A few heads turned.
An orc muttered something in his native tongue and walked off shaking his head.
Then, from a bench in the corner, a voice grumbled:
“You wait here.”
I turned to see a grizzled old man with one leg, a steel peg in place of the other, and more scars than facial expressions.
He looked like someone who’d stabbed a god once out of boredom.
“She’ll come.”
I nodded, hesitantly sitting across from him.
The minutes crawled by.
I watched the chaos of the guild slowly wind down: mercenaries slumping into chairs, clerks yawning, a half-drunk ranger loudly insisting that his wolf was talking last week.
I watched job after job go out and come back in.
Bloodied blades returned.
Trophy bags deposited.
Coins clinked and contracts sealed in mana wax.
And I waited.
And waited.
And just when the night was thinning into a kind of still, gritty quiet—
The door slammed open.
Kira walked in.
Covered in dust, shirt torn at the shoulder, carrying something enormous wrapped in cloth and dripping green blood.
The guild fell silent for a heartbeat.
Then the roar began.
“KIRA!”
“YOU CRAZY LIZARD-SLAYING ANGEL!”
“You actually killed it?!”
“She soloed a Greater Sand Lizard?!”
I blinked as I stood up, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
She walked right past me, her eyes locked on the front desk.
Behind her, dragging across the floor with a loud wet thud, was the massive head of a giant desert lizard — fangs longer than my forearms, scales that shimmered faintly with residual enchantments, and one eye still twitching.
The receptionist paled.
“P-Proof of completion?”
Kira grunted and tossed the creature’s severed tongue on the counter like a receipt.
“Still warm,” she said.
The guild erupted into cheers again.
I followed her, dodging slaps on the back and people trying to lift the lizard head to feel its weight until we were past the main hall and into the backend — a series of low-ceilinged rooms where bounty heads were stored and contracts archived.
There, in a side room lined with crates of drying monster guts, Kira finally stopped.
She handed the clerk her claim papers and turned slowly.
Her eyes met mine.
Dark.
Focused.
Slightly annoyed.
“You followed me,” she said, flatly.
I raised both hands.
“Look — I know it’s weird. I know this is probably the last thing you want after fighting a lizard the size of a house. But I need to talk to you.”
“About?”
“The game.”
She tilted her head, crossing her arms.
“I read a few lines. Got paid. Job’s done.”
“You were perfect. That role needs you. Adam—my boss—he’s dead-set on this. He sent me out here in the middle of the night to find you.”
“And you… did?”
“Apparently.”
She sighed, glanced at the now-dead lizard head leaking ichor into a crate, then back at me.
“What does your boss even want with me?”
***
The backend of the guild smelled like dried guts and oiled leather.
It was dim, quiet, and the walls were lined with crates, job tokens, and old wanted posters that had been scratched out so many times they looked like abstract art.
Kira stood under the flickering lantern with her arms crossed, half in the shadow of a dangling wyvern wing, her face unreadable.
I’d just finished my desperate little pitch — half speech, half stammer — and she stared at me like she was trying to decide whether I was a conman or a lunatic.
Maybe both.
Finally, she spoke.
“So… what does a voice actor actually do?”
I blinked.
Took a breath.
Here we go.
“You… become the character,” I said.
“You lend your voice — your tone, your breath, your anger, your fear — to someone who only exists on paper. Or in code. Or in magic. You speak their thoughts, and through you, they come alive.”
She frowned, still skeptical.
“So it’s reading lines.”
“No,” I said, sharper than I intended.
“It’s not just reading lines. It’s putting yourself into a world you might never see, so someone else can feel like they’re living in it.”
I reached into my coat, pulled out the script Adam had given me, and handed it to her.
“Dark Tower isn’t just some dungeon grind,” I continued.
“It’s a journey. A rogue’s journey — someone who’s lost everything and climbs a cursed tower to find a reason to keep going. Every floor is a memory. Every boss is a part of herself she’s too scared to face. Guilt. Arrogance. Fear. It’s her, Kira.”
She glanced down at the script.
Didn’t open it.
“Sounds dramatic,” she muttered.
“Is this like that Chess thing?”
I hesitated.
“I mean the enchanted boards that’ve been popping up in casinos?”
“People spend hours in there moving little pieces around. I don’t get it. But they yell a lot.”
I sighed.
“Yeah. I guess. Same idea. Only louder. And more emotional damage.”
She tilted her head, unconvinced.
“Still sounds like desk work. Reading lines into a crystal while some guy scribbles notes and tells you to ‘put more rage in it.’ I can’t do that. I’m not built for it. I fight. I move. I bleed. I live out there.”
She gestured toward the door with her thumb.
“I can’t sit in a room pretending to be someone else. That’s not who I am.”
Her words hit harder than I expected.
Something about her casual dismissal — about the ease with which she threw away this opportunity — lit a small, unwelcome fire in my chest.
I stepped forward.
Not threateningly.
But firmly.
“You think it’s boring? Sitting in a room recording lines? This isn’t a desk job. This is you planting your voice into the bones of something new. This is you becoming the beating heart of a story people will feel. They’ll cry when you scream. They’ll clench their fists when you whisper. They’ll believe in her — because of you.”
I paused.
Let that hang.
“What I’m offering you, Kira… isn’t a job. It’s a chance to be remembered.”
She flinched, just slightly.
I stepped closer.
“You’re a fighter, right? That’s your thrill? Facing death and walking away?”
“Yeah.”
“This is a different kind of fight. The kind that leaves echoes. Do you know what happens if this game becomes what Adam wants it to be? If this Dark Tower gets played across the continent?”
She said nothing.
So I kept going.
“Then for as long as there’s someone out there brave enough to climb it… for as long as one adventurer loads the game up, listens to that first cutscene, and hears that rogue say ‘I climb not because I believe… but because I cannot turn back’ — they’ll be hearing you.”
“You won’t just exist. You’ll resonate. You’ll be immortal. And not in some vague heroic ballad no one remembers. No — you’ll speak to them. Every floor. Every boss. Every quiet moment between battles when the player wonders whether they should keep going… and then they hear your voice again.”
She stared at me.
Still unmoved.
Still stoic.
And then, slowly… she opened the script.
She scanned the first few lines.
Ran a thumb over the paper.
“You said she’s a rogue?”
“Yeah. Lone type. Guilt-driven. Clever. Too angry to stop.”
“She sounds… familiar.”
I watched her face shift — just a little. Just enough.
She looked up.
“If I do this,” she said, slowly, “I want that lizard head mounted in the studio.”
I blinked. “The one leaking green blood?”
“I want it stuffed and enchanted to roar whenever someone enters the room.”
“You’re serious?”
“Deadly.”
I sighed and grinned.
“Welcome to Project Dark Tower.”