The deeper they went, the more the stone began to change.
Walls once smooth and pale grey darkened into something almost flesh-like veined and damp. The scent of rust, mold, and blood filled every breath. Carvings emerged, etched with claws or something worse: names in a language none of them knew, but that made Kael's stomach tighten when he looked at them too long.
The scythe pulsed once. Just once.
But it was enough.
Elira led them with care, her gauntlet's runes flickering faintly. She reached out and tapped a glyph on the wall one of many now glowing faint green along the passage.
"These are ward glyphs," she murmured. "Faint. Old. But still active."
"Protection?" Tessan asked, his voice low.
"No. Containment."
They all went still.
Drev moved ahead, eyes half-lidded under his hood. "There's something moving below us," he said, not looking at them. "Several. Watching from beneath the stone."
Ryall's jaw tightened. "Then we keep moving. Fast."
They stepped into the next hall.
The floor was made of skulls. Not metaphorically actual skulls, pressed and bound together with hardened pitch and black crystal. They crunched underfoot, the echoes unnatural and flat.
Kael felt the scythe stir again.
A whisper, but not in his ears.
"They were offerings. Failed bearers. You won't be different."
He clenched his grip tighter. Not now.
They entered a chamber ringed with jagged pillars, each one etched with a name in that same twisted language. The moment they crossed the threshold
The shadows moved.
Not metaphor. Not metaphorical. They rose.
Dozens of low-tier horrors began crawling from between the pillars long-limbed, some headless, others fused together like failed rituals. These weren't scouts. They were guardians.
Kael moved instinctively, placing himself near Elira.
Tessan roared and charged, cleaver cleaving through the nearest one like it was fruit. Ryall dashed past him, aura surging around his fists amber gold and sharp like broken glass.
Each punch shattered bones. One strike hit so hard it caved in three horrors at once.
Drev phased, weaving in and out, planting black crystal needles into exposed flesh that exploded into quiet voids. Limbs disappeared. Eyes melted.
Elira muttered a short command in Whisper-speech.
Three glyphs floated above her head then lashed outward like chains of light, latching onto one of the horrors and pinning it to the wall. She followed it with a focused beam of pressure, boring a hole clean through its skull.
Kael stared for a heartbeat.
Then he swung.
The scythe responded with dark grace.
Shadows trailed behind it like wings, flames licked along its edge. But Kael couldn't control the angle his blade dug too deep, got caught in bone, forced him to wrench it free.
Another horror dove at him.
He ducked too slow.
A claw caught his side.
Pain blossomed.
Elira blasted it away.
Kael gasped, blood soaking through the leather. The pain wasn't unbearable but it was real.
He straightened. Shadows curled around his feet.
His next swing was tighter. The scythe's weight started to feel like his own.
One horror, too close, reached for him
And vanished.
No flame. No slash. Just gone.
Kael blinked.
Had that been him?
The scythe was humming now, low and eager.
"Don't lose yourself," Elira called, slicing through another enemy. "That thing feeds. Use it but don't let it guide you."
Kael nodded. He didn't trust his voice.
By the time the last horror dropped, the chamber was a mess of torn limbs, seared bone, and hissing void patches left by Drev's strikes.
They regrouped. Ryall was panting, a shallow gash across his brow. Tessan wiped gore off his cleaver. Elira checked her gauntlet. Drev stood silently, watching Kael.
"That last move," he said. "It wasn't you."
Kael looked up, wary.
Drev pointed to the scythe. "It did something else. We didn't see it clearly. But the air shifted. You should be careful."
Kael nodded slowly. "I know."
But inside, something was smiling.
Far below the ruin, beneath even the stone something had felt that burst of power.
And now… it was waking.