The last tongues of flame sagged into coals, a dying orange eye in the deepening gloom. Doomhaven never granted true night, Zuberi was learning with a weary certainty. The sky that hovered over the ridge seemed trapped in a perpetual twilight—violet bruising into indigo, then stalling there, as if the suns were a stubborn coin refusing to drop below the horizon. No stars emerged to offer familiar patterns, no moon offered solace against the encroaching shadows. Only this stalled, half-light remained, and the wind's ceaseless, lonely scrape along the high rock faces, a sound like dry bones whispering secrets. It was a light that promised dawn but never delivered, keeping nerves perpetually frayed, denying the deep rest the body craved.
Zuberi knelt beside the fire ring, coaxing the embers back into a low amber glow – enough for warmth, not enough smoke to betray their position to whatever might lurk beyond the hollow's edge. Across the small circle, Lisa crouched, feeding finger-thick twigs she had gathered during her perimeter sweep into the nascent heat. The orange light flickered across her face, catching the fine layer of dust on her cheekbones like ritual war paint, highlighting the exhaustion etched around her eyes. Catching his eye, she dipped her head in a small nod and murmured, almost too low to hear above the wind, "The wind's steady from the east—nothing larger than a rock-jumper moving out there, not for a while." Her voice carried the brittle fatigue of a long, terrifying day, yet the quiet certainty in it steadied him. He found himself trusting her senses, and indeed a quick tilt of his ear confirmed there was nothing there but the mouse-like rock-jumpers in that direction.
Hanz lounged against a flat boulder nearby, his worn coat drawn tight against the chill, the dark, angular shape of his shadow-weapon resting across his knees like a sleeping predator. He watched the flames with a brooding intensity, as though they held answers he couldn't quite decipher, or perhaps arguments he meant to win later. "You take first watch, tribal king," he said, his tone dry but lacking its usual bite. Exhaustion, or perhaps the shared danger of the canyon and the unsettling presence of this land, had sanded down his edges. "I'll relieve you when the…", he paused and cast a glance upward, a frown of irritation at the unchanging twilight, "sky decides to pretend it's dawn."
Zuberi inclined his head, accepting the watch and the grudging respect implicit in Hanz's tone. He felt the mantle of leadership settle again, still strange and heavy on his shoulders after years spent trying to shed responsibility, but no longer entirely alien. It was a weight dictated by necessity, by the simple fact that someone had to make the hard choices, had to project strength even when feeling hollowed out. He hefted his spear, its familiar weight grounding him in the physical world, checked the fire-hardened point with a practiced thumb, then glanced at Eli. The boy lay curled against Shifty's side, limbs already slack with the deep exhaustion only the young seemed able to fully embrace, his small face peaceful for the first time since the canyon. Shifty's reptilian eyelids slid half closed, but Zuberi noted how her decorative frills lifted slightly at every gust of wind – an instinctive, unwavering sentry, her loyalty to the boy absolute.
Lisa rose, stretching cramped shoulders with a soft groan. She checked the machete Zuberi had given her in the Wraithlands, now sheathed securely at her hip, the gesture unconsciously reassuring. "I'll take second watch," she said.
The rotation felt right. Eli was a child, Shifty his fierce protector and Zuberi suspected they hadn't had much opportunity to rest, harrassed by a pack of silverbacks as the duo had been. He almost argued that Lisa should rest as well, that she was still vomiting her guts out earlier that day, but by that metric, he had been barely standing after the Wraithlands. He decided she needed the trust more than the care and nodded his ascent.
He circled the lip of the hollow, finding a shoulder-high outcrop of rock that offered a commanding view of the approaches without silhouetting him against the sky. Below, the slope dropped away into darkness towards the broken mesas they had crossed; beyond that, all blended into a vast, blue-gray uncertainty under the perpetual dusk. The end-of-day chill crawled across the exposed rock, sinking into his bones, sharpening the scents on the wind: dry dust, the faint tang of charcoal from their fire, the lingering, almost imperceptible metallic hint of Hanz's spent shadow-bolts. Each breath tasted like a forge cooling too quickly after intense heat, thin and unsatisfying.
The wind whispered and moaned across the ledge, a lonely, desolate sound that seemed to carry echoes of the Wraithlands' sorrow. He listened intently, straining his senses, trying to hear the things this world used instead of crickets or night birds – the subtle pulmonic clicks, half mechanical, half insect, that sometimes skittered at the edge of hearing – but tonight even those were muted. The hush felt suspended, unnatural, pregnant, like the held breath before a predator strikes. Waiting. The land itself felt like it was watching, holding its judgment.
An hour passed, maybe two. Time lacked sharp edges here; without the familiar passage of sun or stars across a predictable sky, the hours bled into one another. He measured the watch by his own internal rhythm, by the slow shift of shadows as the twilight deepened and then, maddeningly, began to lighten again without ever reaching true dark. At last, Lisa's silhouette approached, moving with her usual deliberate gait, quiet as a stalking cat. She brought two fingers to the side of her forehead then jerked them away in a small salute, which she followed up with a smile.
"Your turn to close your eyes," she said, voice low, mindful of those still sleeping.
Zuberi nodded, handing her the spear without words, a ceremonial transfer of watch, responsibility passed, even though she now carried his heavy machete around her waist, as if it had always been hers. She accepted the spear gravely, her grip firm, her eyes already scanning the darkness beyond the hollow. Lisa smiled and he walked past her toward the ring of dying fire, his boots crunching softly on the loose grit. Hanz barely stirred as Zuberi spread his blanket of patched leather near the relative shelter of the overhang, using his pack as a pillow. The ground was hard, unforgiving, pressing against old bruises, but the rules of suvival were the same everywhere. On the hunt or on the battlefield, you rested when you could and failing to do so could cost you your life. Only yours if you were lucky.
He lay facing the dying embers, pulling the thin blanket tighter against the chill that seemed to rise from the stone itself. Wind cooled the sweat on his temples and whispered secrets he didn't want to hear. As fatigue seeped deep into him, a weight pulling him down, his thoughts stretched and fraying at the edges like old cloth. The half-light behind his eyelids pulsed. Erattic and rhythmic. The familiar earth smells receded and the rasp of the wind quieted, replaced by a low hum that vibrated behind his sternum.
And the world slipped away.
One moment, the cold stone beneath him, the whisper of wind; the next, he stood in a place instantly, chillingly familiar. The air hung thick with the phantom scent of old musk and dry earth – the smell he remembered from the mouth of the forbidden cave near the northern ridge back home. His grandfather had spoken of it only in hushed, respectful tones – the den of the Simba Mweupe, the great white lion with the impossible black mane, the apex predator whispered about in legends, whose presence demanded caution even from the bravest hunters. As a boy, Zuberi had felt its pull, smelled that same musty predator scent drifting on the wind, but fear had always held him back. He had never dared approach, never dared confirm the legend. Now, whatever force shaped this inner space, had recreated it for him, forcing him to confront the threshold he had never crossed. The cave mouth yawned before him, carved from dark, volcanic rock instead of savanna sandstone, but the feeling was the same – a place of immense, sleeping power, ancient and dangerous. This wasn't just a mental space; it was a challenge, grounded in his deepest fears and reverence. A name that was as certain as it was not of hiw choosing, settled in his mind. Den of Power.
With a careful gait, he stepped inside. The air here was different – charged, electric, vibrating with a silent energy that resonated within his bones, making his teeth ache. Beneath the dark, polished floor, faint veins of molten red pulsed rhythmically, like the distant, slumbering heartbeat of the lion itself, or perhaps the land's own power. The den was neither hostile nor welcoming; it simply was, a silent, immutable record of passage and trial, reflecting his own journey.
The walls were not smooth but textured, glimmering with embedded shapes – trophies of his struggles, reminders etched into the very stone. He reached out, compelled, touching the impossibly preserved, ridged hide of the rhinoceraptor he and Hanz had slain earlier. It felt real, solid under his fingertips, the rough texture grounding him momentarily, yet it was undeniably part of the living rock. Touching it brought back a phantom jolt – the beast's dying shudder, the surprising weight of its horn, the chilling realization of Doomhaven's unnatural laws where death yielded strange rewards. Next to it, fused into the stone matrix like dark scars, were some of the silverbacks' quill-like growths. Looking at the two long, glinting quills, mounted inside a crystal base like trophies, unnerved Zuberi. He was not the kind of hunter who desecrated what he hunted. And yet, deep down he had a feeling this was not that. Inching forward, he stared at the stacks of raw meats, cut and arranged into steaks, organs, and even different kinds of sausages. Zuberi groaned, annoyed at having had to ration a single moon-fur rabbit when meat was this plenty. But when he tried to grab a handful of the steaks, his hand froze inches away. Not yet, the den seemed to whisper in the thrumming silence. But soon.
He moved deeper, drawn down a side passage into a broad, rounded chamber where the air grew warmer, thicker. On the smooth basalt floor rose a great mound, easily taller than himself, composed entirely of smooth, rainbow-sheened pebbles. They looked identical to the countless pebbles he remembered swirling around him when he first awoke in this world, yet these were different. These pebbles thrummed with contained energy, each one swirling with a faint inner aurora, radiating a palpable sense of raw potential, untamed capacity waiting to be claimed and channeled. It wasn't just rock; it felt like solidified power, dormant but potent.
Opposite the mound, three shallow basins were carved directly into the floor, their dark stone seeming to yearn for the swirling pebbles, like empty mouths waiting to be fed. Zuberi approached the first basin cautiously, feeling a strange pull. Within it lay dormant, translucent crystals shot through with silver filaments, emitting a faint, almost imperceptible hum. As his fingers brushed the nearest crystal, the air around him seemed to blur, time itself stuttering, stretching and compressing like faulty memory. Images flashed – a predator's swipe slowed to syrup, his own movements impossibly fast, the world seen through a distorted lens. Continuum, the understanding bloomed in his mind, cold and sharp – the power over time's flow, the hunter's ultimate edge, or ultimate trap. He felt the urge, strong and seductive, to grasp a pebble from the mound, to feed the basin, to claim this power fully, but hesitated. The choice felt momentous, irreversible, a path taken that might close off others.
He moved deliberately to the second bowl. It held flat, river-gray stones that seemed to absorb the ambient light, radiating a focused stillness. When he touched one, the world snapped into hyper-focus. The distant heartbeat of the den became a deafening drum in his ears; he could almost taste the metallic tang of the volcanic rock, feel the subtle shifts in the silent wind against his skin as if it were solid. Every detail leaped out, sharp, overwhelming. Perceptus. Heightened perception, awareness sharpened to a razor's edge, seeing beyond the physical, into the currents beneath.
The third bowl cradled rough, red nuggets mottled with darker flecks, radiating a palpable, earthy warmth. Touching one sent a surge of vitality up his arm, a feeling like plunging into cool water after hours under a harsh sun; the ache in his ankle faded, the deep weariness in his muscles eased, replaced by a feeling of resilience, of enduring strength, the power to simply keep going. Fortis. Endurance, the power to withstand, to outlast.
All three bowls pulsed with a quiet hunger, only partially filled, representing the potential already awakened within him by trial and survival, yet demanding more, demanding commitment. Choosing where to invest the power of the pebbles felt permanent, a declaration, a path chosen that might alter him irrevocably. He withdrew his hand, letting the raw potential remain unclaimed, unshaped. The responsibility felt too great, the consequences unknown. For now.
Continuum. Perceptus. Fortis. The names settled in his mind with the same unwelcome familiarity as Wraithlands or Rhinoceraptor had – words he shouldn't know, yet did, as if whispered by the land itself or dredged from some deep, forgotten well within him. He disliked the sound of them, the feel of them. They echoed something else, something he pushed away, refused to examine too closely. Isabel. Her face swam before him for a sickening moment – the look she wore near the end, that terrible, fervent intensity as she pleaded with her god, tears streaming, mixing with blood from her cut lip and the salty spray of the endless churning waters… He shoved the fragmented memory down, hard. He didn't want to remember, but sometimes, in places like this, the battle was lost before it began.
Another passage beckoned deeper still, leading downwards into rising heat. As he descended, the air grew warmer, shimmering like a mirage. Beneath his feet, the lava veins in the rock glowed brighter, pulsing insistently, the heartbeat of the den growing stronger. The tunnel opened into a vast, cavernous vault, dominated by a lake of roiling, molten rock that rolled like slow thunder, casting waves of intense heat against his face. Suspended above its surface, burning with impossible intensity, blinding in its brilliance, hovered a corona of golden-white flame – the essence of his fire gift, the 'Sunshine' power that had burst from him, uncontrolled, in the Wraithlands. He felt it resonate deep within his chest, a familiar, fierce ember calling to him. Yet as he instinctively reached towards it, drawn to its raw power, an equal and opposite force slammed into him – a wave of profound, soul-numbing cold that made him recoil, gasping, the air driven from his lungs.
He turned, shivering despite the heat. Across the vault, nestled in an alcove rimmed with crystalline hoarfrost that glittered like captured starlight in the molten glow, spun a single, flawless crystal of midnight-blue. It radiated an intense cold, exhaling plumes of vapor so frigid they seemed to crack the nearby rock, freezing the very air. The vapor curled towards him, silent, inviting, offering a different kind of strength – shelter from heat, from pressure, from the crushing weight of despair itself. Absolute. The power of ice, of detachment, of enduring the unbearable. Twin halves of a greater power, fire and ice, demanding balance, warring within him, pulling him in opposite directions.
He retreated from the vault, his heart pounding, the duality unsettling him, leaving him feeling fractured. The den seemed to respond to his turmoil, his indecision. As he returned to the main chamber, the floor shifted subtly beneath his feet, the magma veins brightening with agitated light. Before his eyes, stone extruded skyward near the entrance, flowing like thick liquid and hardening instantly into a new statue: a tall, faceless figure robed in tattered, shadow-like edges, its cape seeming to dissolve into black mist – the Dreadwraith. It stood stark and menacing, guarding the threshold. Beneath it, carved into the slab, appeared not letters, but a visceral, chilling understanding that sank directly into his mind, cold as the Wraith's touch: Next debt owed. The Den of Whispers had shown him his past, his potential, his conflicting powers, and now, his next looming trial.
Zuberi resurfaced with a sharp inhale, the cold reality of the cave jarring after the intensity of the interface. The dusky sky visible through the cave mouth had lightened by the barest degree, enough to tint the high, thin clouds a pale lavender. A damp chill clung to the air. Wind rattled the sparse, dead shrubs near the entrance and tugged ash from the extinguished fire pit.
Lisa kneeled near the cave mouth, tending the small embers of the watch fire, her spear resting against the wall beside her. She gave him a small, questioning nod as he sat up, her eyes searching his face. "You were gone awhile," she murmured, her voice low. "Restless sleep?"
"Not sleep," Zuberi rasped, rubbing his face, trying to shake off the lingering sensations – the phantom heat and cold, the thrumming energy of the place he now knew as the Den of Whispers. His eyes scanned the cave mouth, sharp with a new urgency. "A vision. A warning." He pushed himself fully upright, ignoring the protest from his ankle. "The next trial has been shown. A Dreadwraith. It's coming."
Hanz, roused by the intensity in Zuberi's voice, sat up, instantly alert despite his weariness. "Wraith?" he asked. "Like those things in the mist?"
"Worse," Zuberi said grimly, the memory of the faceless statue vivid. "Much worse. It felt… old. And hungry." He met Lisa's searching gaze. "The place inside… the Den… it showed me. It feels close." So that was the source of the deeper chill he'd felt clinging to the edges of this land since the Wraithlands, the cold weight beneath the immediate dangers. Not just random hostility, but a focused malice, waiting.
Lisa's brow creased, her gaze distant for a moment as if trying to connect his words to her own fragmented feelings. "A wraith, but dreadful—Doomhaven has a flair for the obvious, at least," she said. She stood, rolling her shoulders as if shaking off a physical chill. "We'll prepare while we can still breathe." She glanced towards the cave mouth, at the unchanging twilight. "This sky refuses to pick a side."
Zuberi rose, his joints cracking in protest. The ache in his ankle was a dull reminder of their last fight. He looked towards the brightening horizon visible beyond the hollow's lip. A new day. Time to move. The decaying wilderness awaited, and somewhere within it, the Dreadwraith. He picked up his spear, the wood familiar and solid in his grasp, ready to face what came next.