The moment the strange shard hit the ground, a cold, crystalline explosion blossomed outward like a frozen flower, and the courtyard instantly filled with sharp, biting chill.

Ellie snapped to attention. Her knees flexed as she launched herself forward, tracking the origin of the shard and scanning the courtyard for danger. Finnie, still pale and trembling, clung to the edge of the piazza while others staggered, coughing from the sudden frost.

The courtyard’s injured and ill lay scattered: villagers doubled over in pain, children shivering with fever, and a few people already convulsing on the stone. A dozen or more skeleton-like husks—reanimated corpses—staggered among the fallen, their movements jerky and unnatural. Someone had triggered a necrotic contagion, and it was spreading fast.

Ellie’s tracker instincts flared. She intercepted a small winged creature that had been pecking at one of the fallen—its beak had pierced something and absorbed a vicious whisper of dark energy. Ellie recognized the signature and reacted instantly: “Bird Needle—Level up!” The tracker icon popped in her mind like a skill notification.

A ripple of light condensed around the tiny bird as Ellie’s ability gained experience. The bird’s next peck would be sharper, deadlier. More importantly, the tracker’s area-sensing ping had detected other infected spots across the courtyard—small, quick sources of the rot that were spreading the sickness.

Finnie keeled over with a cough;

her eyes fluttered as hot fever and cold chills warred through her. Ellie didn’t hesitate. She dashed from patient to patient, using evasive motions and quick probing strikes to pry the small dark parasites from skin and clothing, handing each one off for treatment. Each parasite removed made a little chime in her head—another collect, another fragment of experience.

The courtyard elders shouted orders, trying to maintain order as more villagers collapsed. Someone kept yelling that the sickness originated from a nearby field and that a swarm of dark insects had been found crawling over the late harvest. Men and women hurried to help, but their movements were clumsy, weighed down by fear and confusion.

“Keep them warm! Keep them breathing!” someone cried. They improvised breathing treatments and poultices while others formed ad hoc stretches to keep the wounded stable. The healer’s supplies were limited;

the crowd desperately scavenged whatever herbs and linens they could find. In the chaos, a faint, distant clanging of a warning bell echoed through the compound.

Ellie’s attention split between action and assessment. She felt the tracker’s cold sting as if it were physical. The little birdlike parasite she’d just neutralized had yielded a small crystal fragment—an item she’d seen before in ruins and monsters: Bird Shard. Her skill interface acknowledged the gain: Bird Needle +1.

Somewhere nearby, a makeshift AOE treatment—the elders’ crude attempt to dispel the spread with an area cleansing—was failing to hold. The corrupted husks shambled through patches of steam and burned herbs, shrugging off the makeshift cures. The infection was clever: it burrowed into the dead and the living alike, using both flesh and decay as carriers.

Ellie activated another of her tracking techniques, pinning a faint trail to a heap by the granary. There, under a broken crate, a cluster of black larvae writhed—perfect incubators for the spreading disease. She jabbed one with a pin and watched the tracker gauge spike. “Bird Needle Lv.4—ready!” the skill announced in her mind, followed by an immediate upgrade to Lv.5 as the final brood was pierced. The sound of the level-up was almost like a bell of relief.

A villager’s shout drew Ellie’s gaze to a group of children huddled beneath a low eave, their breaths ragged. She moved them to safety, gingerly removing more parasites with deft, practiced hands. Each parasite removal felt like plucking a thorn from the community’s side, easing both immediate suffering and the pressure on the healer team.

“Bird Needle—Level 1 complete!” the skill chimed again as she converted the fragments into usable skill energy. A new ability notification slid into her awareness: Bird Cook’s Fall—weak. The language of these skill names was crude and peculiar, but the meaning was clear: a consumable effect, a crowning drop that would cause localized collapse among the infected creatures.

Ellie deployed the new effect where it would be most useful. A small cluster of animated husks crumpled under the effect, giving the healing team time to stabilize the worst cases. The courtyard breathed a shaky sigh of relief, but the larger crisis remained: the contamination points numbered in the dozens, and the healer supplies were dwindling.

Someone near the gate shouted that the infestation had come from the eastern field, where children had been foraging. The party rushed to the location: a patch of fallow ground littered with refuse and oversimple traps—perfect breeding ground. There, among overturned baskets and crushed grain, lay the source: broken shards of dark crystal and dozens of tiny brown larvae clinging to stalks and hides. The larvae injected a freezing, rot-laced venom that sapped strength and lulled the immune system to sleep.

The elders organized rescue squads. Teams moved in formation: half of them lifted the wounded, half of them crushed or burned the larvae, and a few hardy fellows tried to barricade the area. Ellie coordinated with them, pointing out hotspots by sight and tracker pings. Her small interventions—pinpointed strikes and quick removal—made outsized differences.

Finnie, though fevered, managed a weak smile when someone gave her a cloth soaked in warm broth. The sight of the girl trying to steady herself despite fever kindled a fierce protective urge in Ellie. She rallied two nearby youths to form a bearing and help carry Finnie to the central tent where the main healer was attempting to triage.

As the day wore on, the community’s efforts began to take hold. The contagion’s spread slowed as teams cleared nests and destroyed contaminated material. Some of the skeleton-husks took longer to fall;

they required continuous, coordinated AOE suppression, coupled with careful extraction of the remaining parasites embedded in their bones. The crude iron bowls used for makeshift cleansing were passed from hand to hand, boiling salt and herb steam sprayed over afflicted sections, while a few of the stronger villagers wielded weapons to finish off the animated corpses.

Ellie felt the weight of fatigue in her limbs, but she refused to stop. Each successful removal, each small bundle of rescued villagers, provided a surge of resilience. The tracker skill flashed again—Bird Cook’s Fall leveled up, granting a stronger effect. “Bird Cook’s Fall Lv.2—activated,” the notification confirmed.

The courtyard’s morale, once plummeting, rose a notch. People cheered quietly as a central cluster of husks finally shattered and the main AOE purge held for a few precious minutes. Food and clean water were rationed more carefully;

a small supply list was scribbled into the dirt to keep track of needed items: one ration packet, one boiled cloth, one mild antiseptic—every minor thing mattered now.

Ellie gathered what supplies she could find and returned to the sick tents. She used the slightly more powerful Bird Cook’s Fall on an adjacent group of reanimated husks, disrupting their cohesion and giving the healers a chance to apply restorative treatments. Finnie, though exhausted, helped hand out small hot compresses to children too weak to sit up. The little acts—soft words, warm cloths—kept panic from overwhelming everyone.

At dusk, the last major nests had been cleared. The remaining cases were being stabilized with repeated care and the occasional skill-assisted purge. The tracker fed Ellie a final reward notification as the last parasite shattered into brittle crystal: Bird Cook’s Fall reached Lv.3. A cheer rose, ragged but heartfelt, across the courtyard.

By nightfall, the compound was a mess of blankets, steaming cauldrons, and bandaged arms;

but it was functional. The worst had been contained. The main healer, exhausted but steady, nodded to Ellie and Finnie, their relief and gratitude plain on her face.

Ellie looked up at the moon as it rose over the ruined field. She felt the cold that had started this disaster settle in the air—an aftertaste of frost that worried her. Where had the shards come from? Who had left those seeds of corruption? The tracker had removed the immediate threat, but the origin remained a mystery.

Finnie, wrapped in a blanket and held by a neighbor, managed to murmur, “Thank you.” Her voice was thin, but sincere. Ellie gave a small, tired nod.

They had saved most of the people tonight. That was enough for now. But the shard that fell—an ice crystal born of malevolent rot—hinted at something larger. Tomorrow, Ellie vowed, they would find out who had unleashed the frozen blight and why.

For now, they would mend what they could, rest when possible, and keep watch until the source was discovered.