In the year 2026, the living world of Eora still whispered secrets into the ears of those brave enough to stray beyond the firelight of Fior mes Iverno. Few paths led as far west as the Glade of Lacuna, a mirror-smooth hollow that looked more like a tear dropped by a tired god than a proper lake. Travelers spoke of a figure cloaked in silence who stood on the far dock, calm as a stone altar while dire creatures roamed the tree line. That figure called himself the Giftbearer, and his invitation was the beginning of a downward spiral into the darkest water a lone adventurer could imagine.

When the Envoy finally tracked the Giftbearer down, the meeting had the weight of a thread being tied in a tapestry. The Giftbearer claimed to speak for Ondra, goddess of mourning and deep waters, and his voice slid into the air like an old prayer. He said that a shard of the shattered third moon, Ionni Brathr, had plunged into Lacuna ages ago—a fragment of sky that still hummed with a sorrowful light at the bottom of the lake. His request was simple: retrieve the meteorite so it could be cast into the deepest ocean trench, forever out of mortal reach. But simplicity in Avowed was always a mask worn by a question no one had yet spoken aloud.

Diving into Lacuna felt like cutting through layers of cold silk. The water grew heavier with every stroke, and the Envoy’s lungs stiffened as the giant roots of ancient trees framed a crater below. There, at the heart of that submerged chasm, lay the Mysterious Meteorite, pulsing with such a faint radiance that it reminded one of a candle flame seen through a shuttered window. What truly unsettled the explorer were the stone-like hands—dozens of them—frozen mid-grasp around the relic, as if the lakebed itself were a congregation of forgotten supplicants forever begging for a piece of the sky. To touch the meteorite was to feel the weight of a sorrow that predated any living memory, the kind of grief that settles into the bones like silt.

Air became a luxury measured in heartbeats. The ascent was not a climb but a frantic unspooling from the lake’s hungry grip. Breaking the surface brought no peace, only a chorus of rattling breath and the sudden glare of too many eyes. Revenants had gathered at the shore, their gray flesh a mockery of the drowned statues below, some of them bristling with a strength that far outmatched the Envoy’s own. Hiding among the reeds and pushing for the distant shore was one option—shadows in Avowed could be more merciful than a blade—but the other choice was to let steel sing a sharper song and scatter the undead back into the mud from which they clawed their way up.

When the last gasp of combat faded, the Envoy stood at the rendezvous point with the meteorite in hand, its cold surface tracing slow chills up an arm. The Giftbearer received it with the same serene detachment, describing his intent to bury it in a lightless deep where no cartographer’s line ever fell. Yet here, the tale split like a cracked bell. The Envoy could surrender the shard to the hungry sea, believing that some relics should be lost so the world could heal. Or the messenger could carry it onward, a potential star-metal seed that some hidden smith might one day forge into a weapon—an echo of the shattered moon sharp enough to carve new legends. In either ending, the lake Lacuna kept its secret, a dark mirror reflecting the truth that sometimes the rarest treasures are those we choose to let sink beyond reach.