Ash and Antler

Briar has died forty-one times. One more and the border game of Ashvale will erase her into an NPC — a voice in a shop, repeating the same line forever. Corvin has been logged in for three real-world years, hunting the deleted account of his sister, burning his own body out one respawn at a time. When the season turns, the game forces them into a party — a stag-headed ranger with a hidden Memory stat and a stubborn player who refuses the log-off prompt. The publisher is farming something behind the Memory Dungeon. Every kill steals a year of Corvin's life. Every boss takes a memory Briar will never get back. And the event boss at the end has his sister's face.