They tied the horse at the entrance of Calvain.

It stood patient as always, reins looped gently around a post half-eaten by ivy. The gate behind it leaned inward, a drunkard frozen mid-collapse. One of its hinges was gone. So was the bell that once warned intruders away.

Inside, the city had collapsed gracefully.

Buildings slouched against each other like sleeping men. Stone had buckled in slow spirals, cracked not by impact but by years of soft erosion. Moss replaced windows. Grass split cobblestone. Ivy turned cathedrals into ruins shaped like cathedrals.

Aldric’s boots made no sound on the overgrown path. Just the occasional crunch of broken glass or brittle wood.

He passed what had once been a bakery. The walls were stained black. Probably from fire. The soot here had no source. The ovens were cold, untouched. Loaves still sat in trays, petrified in their last rise, blackened with age. He didn’t step further in.

Next door: a home.

The door had fallen inward. He pushed through carefully.

Inside, silence.

A kitchen table still bore the remnants of a meal: cutlery scattered, a pitcher tipped, dried fruit fossilized in a bowl. A child’s puzzle sat on the floor, halfway done, one piece resting just outside the frame like a half-finished thought. The wallpaper peeled, the wall covered in mold. A crossbow lay in the corner, string half-tensioned. A quarrel still gripped between two fingers of the person who hadn’t finished loading it.

Aldric turned away before he saw the bones.

He didn’t tell Veylor what he’d found.

Veylor had found his own house.

One near the city’s edge, buried under a collapsed balcony and vines that had turned the upper floor into a garden. Inside, he rummaged silently. Eventually, he emerged with a sword.

Simple. Straight-bladed. Rusted only near the hilt.

Still good.

“This’ll do,” he muttered. “Just need a grindstone.”

Aldric nodded and turned back toward the gate.

They didn’t speak on the walk back.

But they knew the city was wrong.

And when they reached the gate again—

The horse was mauled.

Its flanks torn open, entrails spilled over the ground. Legs twisted in ways no natural predator would have left them. Its jaw was broken, forced open wide enough to crack the bone. Blood pooled thick around its hooves.

The satchels lay ripped open across the stones. Rations scattered. Tools dented. The grindstone cracked in half.

And there, near the edge of the pool of blood, lay the pouch. Unsealed.

And beside it, the bird. Still unrotted.

The horse’s empty eye stared at Aldric. Accusing. As if it knew he’d led death here.

His stomach lurched.

Veylor looked around, slowly. Studied the the drag marks.

“If it was here, it’s not here anymore.”

Aldric’s hands shook. “Then it’s close.”

“Probably,” Veylor said. “But high chance it won’t come back any time soon. Take your chances, grab whatever you could.”

Aldric stood, staring in silence.

The knight went over and picked up one of the canteens, checked the seal, and wiped it clean.

“You want to live, Aldric?”

Aldric nodded tightly.

Veylor threw him the grindstone, “Then go collect your gear.”

Aldric swallowed, mouth dry. “And what about—?”

“I already told you. If it wanted us dead, we’d be dead.”

So Aldric moved.

He gathered the maps, torn but usable. Found a sealed ration that hadn’t burst and tucked it into his coat. The compass was in the way, so he took it out.

Its needle still pointed towards the location. Of course it did.

Veylor slouched the barely usable bag on his shoulder and signalled Aldric to move.

They ran.

Through roads, alleyways, leapt over fallen walls, Aldric was barely able to keep up.

His boot caught on a tree root and he fell over.

No time to waste. Aldric crouched to grab the compass again.

Then it hit.

A screech.

Vermals. Dozens. Kraus 1.7 Crawlers, bursting from alleyways like rot given legs.

Time seemed to slowed. Adric backpedaled.

“VEYLOR!”

He didn’t know if the knight heard him. He just sprinted into an empty alleyway.

Outrunning them is possible, but alley was already closing.

One lunged for his throat.

He raised both hands.

“Aegis—”

Too slow.

A shadow slammed into him from the side.

He rolled with it. Crashed through a rotted door. Hit the ground hard.

Veylor stood above him.

Not poised.

Just moving.

“Get up.”

Aldric scrambled up, bleeding at the elbow, breath shuddering.

They were in a house now. The Vermals screeched behind them.

“Basement!” Veylor barked.

Aldric ran.

They fell through the floor hatch just as the wall exploded in a shower of splinters.

The hatch slammed shut above them.

Darkness.

Silence.

Breathing.

Aldric pressed his back against the cold stone wall, heart hammering in his ribs like a war drum. Veylor stood beside him, sword in one hand, breath steady. The only light was a thin sliver bleeding through a crack in the boards above.

A moment passed. Then another.

They waited for the sound.

Not footsteps.

Claws.

But none came.

Aldric whispered, “What the hell was that?”

Veylor didn’t answer.

He stepped away from the wall, moving through the dark. He found a box, overturned it slowly, and gestured for Aldric to sit.

“We’re not safe,” he said. “But at least we’re unseen.”

Aldric nodded. Lowered himself onto the crate. His legs were still shaking. He gripped the compass in his coat pocket like a totem.

Veylor leaned against the wall, eyes scanning the ceiling.

“Did you notice how they moved?”

“They swarmed.”

“Not quite.”

A pause.

“No individuality. They didn’t smell. They had no fear. No scatter behavior.”

Aldric’s blood went cold. “That means…?”

“God knows.” Veylor shrugged.

Silence.

Then, above them: the sound of wooden planks creaking. Not movement. Just weight. Pressure applied in a slow, deliberate drag. Something was up there. Something heavy. And waiting.

Aldric opened his mouth to speak.

Then the entire ceiling pulsed.

The wood bowed inward for a split second, then eased. Like something had pressed down from above, and receded.

He and Veylor locked eyes.

“You’ve got twenty seconds to panic,” Veylor said, deadpan.

“I’ll pass.”

“Good. Help me find an exit.”

They moved quickly now.

Aldric’s hands brushed over brick. Stone. A collapsed cabinet. A shattered wine rack. The room smelled of rot and metal and time.

Veylor found something else. A trapdoor, rusted shut.

“How convenient.”

A tunnel.

Old Dominion design. Sewer access, maybe. It sloped down slightly, into what looked like utter dark.

Aldric hesitated.

“Could lead anywhere.”

“Better than here.”

So they went.

Sewage, overflow ducts, designed to redirect runoff during storms. Rusted. Cracked. Pipes above them rusted to the point of almost crumbling. Aldric’s boots slipped more than once.

The tunnel’s walls were damp. The air stank of wet mold and sludge. Veylor led, hunched slightly to fit. Aldric followed, hand out, one palm keeping Resonance lit the like a torch. Dull, white-gold light casting long shadows.

The tunnel twisted twice. Once down. Once sharply left.

It wasn’t the path the compass had intended, but it’t the only one.

Veylor held a blade in one hand. His other remained near his belt, brushing against a sheathed secondary dagger.

“I don’t like this,” Aldric muttered.

Veylor didn’t answer.

A noise came from the dark in front of them.

A Vermal.

But not a crawler. This one was thin, bone-limbed, with sockets instead of eyes. Its mouth opened vertically and screeched.

“Kraus 2.1.” Veylor muttered. “Mirestrider.”

Adric staggered back.

Then the Vermal suddenly retreated.
Crawled back to the ceiling.

Then a splatter.

Something dropped down.

Another, behind it.

Then another.

Then five more.

There wasn’t just one Mirestrider.

They swarmed, kept falling down.

Veylor tore one in half before it landed. Aldric swept his hands forward.

“Radiance, Arc!”

A blade of light swept the corridor, carving two clean lines across three of them, but barely slowed the rest.

The swarm chased them through the tunnel, snapping and shrieking.

Aldric threw a backwards veil. “Redirect!”

Two more were knocked sideways into the wall. One bit into the stone. Blood sprayed.

They found an small opening.

A hole in the tunnel wall, probably made by the Vermals themselves. No time to think.

Veylor rammed through it shoulder-first. Aldric followed, falling out into open daylight, and slammed into moss.

They’d emerged in a broken plaza.

Half a marketplace. Statues buried in weeds. A collapsed clocktower leaned nearby like a drunk man.

The Vermals came next.

Veylor didn’t wait.

Blade out.

He fought like something practiced. Efficient.
Aldric focused on keeping them off-balance.

“Grid! Concuss!”

It worked.

But more were coming as they ran.

The street widened.

And ahead is a cathedral.

Still intact.
Mostly.

Stained white stone. Vines curled up along the spires. The doors were wide open, leading into shadow.

“Go!” Veylor barked.

Aldric ran.

As they reached the threshold, he pivoted.

“Aegis. Bastion!”

A dome of golden Luminance roared to life in the street behind them. Not a wall. A full barricade. It slammed down in front of the cathedral’s steps like a divine barricade, radiant and humming.

The swarm hit it seconds later.

Claws skittered. Jaws bit. But it held.

For now.

Veylor turned and shoved the cathedral doors shut. He grabbed a shattered pew and wedged it through the handles. Another bench. A rusted chain. It wouldn’t stop them forever.

But it bought time.

The cathedral interior was hollow and breathless.

Light leaked in through stained glass, shattered at the top, faded at the bottom. Rows of pews sagged with rot. Vines had crept in through the walls and hung overhead.

Veylor exhaled. “Where is the compass pointing—”

When he turned back, he saw Aldric sitting on the floor, grabbing his head.

Aldric saw the visions again.

The war.

The thousand voices.

The flame.

He gripped his hair as the scene burned into his mind.

But as quickly as it hit, it went away.

“You alright?” Veylor crouched.

Aldric stood up, “Just a migraine.”

They moved cautiously through the main hall, past the altar, past a collapsed bell podium, until they reached the far wall, where the Golden Dragon of Soviras once stood.

Used to.

It was ripped down.

Now a blank wall.

Aldric raised the compass. The needle pointed directly to it.

Still.

“…This is it?” he asked.

“Doesn’t look like a tablet,” Veylor muttered.

He stepped forward.

Examined the wall.

Aldric ran his fingers along the surface. Smooth, almost polished. The kind of smooth that felt like it should be marked. Something about it itched.

Veylor closed his eyes for a moment.

Then began to speak.

“Narat am ul-Thera.”

Nothing happened.

“Ven atrian fel Sothr.”

Still nothing.

“Eian mar’theleos.”

“You’re chanting to a wall.”

“Quiet.”

He tried again.

“Et dolen et valea—”

The ground shook.

The wall crumbled.

Dust exploded outward. Aldric coughed, waving it away.

When the air cleared, there it was.

The tablet.