### Scene 01: Whispers in the Stone

The fortress loomed like a wound in the mountainside, jagged and gaping, its
ancient stonework choked by creeping ivy and slick black moss. It wasn’t just age
that had devoured it—it was something older, deeper, like the world itself had
tried to swallow this place and failed.

The air bit cold for spring, the kind of unnatural chill that sank through leather
and hide, curling into bone. Mist clung low to the cliffs, drifting in slow,
serpentine tendrils. It didn’t move like normal fog; it seemed to watch, to
slither.

Elaris drew her cloak tighter, the sharp edge of unease pricking her nerves. “This
place…” she murmured. Her breath fogged in the cold, her emerald eyes scanning the
ruin. “It shouldn’t still be standing.”

Uthgar glanced at her from under his fur-lined hood, his scarred jaw tight, but
said nothing. He had felt it too—the wrongness clinging to the stones, the way the
wind carried no scent, no sound. Even the birds had fled.

Steel rasped softly as they drew their weapons and stepped beneath the fortress
archway. Torches lined the crumbling corridor ahead, but no flame had been lit. And
yet—

_Whump._

One after the other, the torches flared to life as they crossed the threshold,
casting cold blue light against the cracked murals. The fire didn’t crackle. It
hissed.

“Charming,” Elaris muttered, her bow already nocked. “Do you think they’re
welcoming us or warning us?”

“Does it matter?” Uthgar’s deep voice rolled like distant thunder. His grey eyes
scanned the darkness, his bastard sword gleaming faintly in the unnatural glow.
“We’re here.”

The corridor stretched on, narrowing as the murals grew more elaborate. Figures of
forgotten civilizations were etched into the walls—kings with hollow eyes, priests
with twisted spines, warriors with blades that dripped black blood.

One figure appeared again and again, tall and thin, its face little more than a
hollow mask. The wisp-like thing’s gaze seemed to follow them as they passed,
though the paint was centuries old.

Uthgar’s hand tightened on his hilt. “It’s watching us.”

Elaris scoffed, though the sound lacked her usual bite. “It’s paint, Uthgar.”

But her hand brushed unconsciously at the skin of her throat.

The stone beneath their boots groaned.

Then it gave way.

The floor split apart in a roar of splintering rock, and suddenly they were
falling, plummeting toward a nest of rusted spikes below.
Uthgar’s instincts took over. He swung his blade down, burying it into the stone
ledge even as the floor vanished beneath them. His other arm lashed out, iron-hard
fingers locking around Elaris’s wrist.

The spikes loomed closer. Dead men stared up at them, long since impaled, their
corpses twisted like broken dolls.

With a savage roar, Uthgar yanked upward, his raw strength ripping them both out of
the pit’s hungry maw. The blade screeched against stone as he pulled, muscles
screaming with effort. Dust choked the air as they crashed onto solid ground.

Elaris coughed, clutching her ribs, eyes wide. “You—” she began, then stopped,
staring at him with something she couldn’t quite name. “I had it under control,”
she added weakly.

“Of course you did.” His grin was sharp as a wolf’s.

They pressed on, the corridors growing tighter, the air colder.

Then came the whispers.

At first, soft—so soft Uthgar thought he imagined them. But they grew louder,
weaving through the air like smoke, curling inside their skulls. Not voices. Not
language. _Something else._

The walls pulsed faintly, runes glowing crimson like fresh wounds opening in the
stone.

“Do you see that?” Elaris whispered.

“See it?” Uthgar said. “I can damn near feel it breathing.”

Then she choked.

Her hands flew to her throat as her legs buckled. A wet gurgle spilled from her
lips as she dropped to her knees.

“Elaris—”

Black ichor oozed from her eyes and mouth in thick, tar-like streams. Her body
convulsed violently, her spine arching until Uthgar feared it would snap. Fingers
clawed at her own tongue as if trying to rip something free.

“_One of you… should not be here._”

The voice that left her mouth was not her own. It was deeper, wet and guttural,
echoing in the stone like a drowned chorus.

Uthgar held his ground.

“_She is… blood… key…_”

Her fingers elongated, nails sharpening into black claws as her arm shot outward.
She pointed—straight at the glowing runes.

“Elaris!” Uthgar growled, stepping closer. “Fight it!”

Then her body went slack. She collapsed onto the cold stone, chest heaving, hands
trembling violently as the ichor dripped from her lips.
Silence swallowed the corridor.

After what felt like hours, her emerald eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused.
“I… remember those symbols,” she whispered, her voice raw. “From when I was taken.”

A tremor passed through her frame.

“They weren’t saving me, were they?”

Uthgar didn’t answer—not yet.

His eyes lingered on the glowing runes.

---
### Scene 02: The Spirit’s Truth

The air in the fortress clung to them like wet leather, thick with rot and the
faint metallic tang of blood long dried. Each breath felt heavier than the last, as
though the walls themselves pressed in to smother the intruders. The torchlight
flickered weakly, its glow devoured by the runes carved deep into the stone. They
pulsed with a sickly green hue, writhing when no one dared look directly at them.

Uthgar’s boots ground against gravel and the brittle snap of old bones as he led
the way. His massive frame seemed almost too solid for this place of shifting
shadows and whispering air. Every muscle coiled with tension, instincts screaming
that his steel wouldn’t matter here—that in this place, muscle and rage were as
useless as prayers.

Elaris trailed just behind, her steps light but hesitant. The usual swagger in her
movements was gone, replaced with a wary tightness. She hugged her arms around
herself, shivering as though some phantom hand lingered on her skin. The sensation
of possession hadn’t left her since the last chamber. Even now, she swore she could
hear faint voices—_closer now_—brushing against her mind like cobwebs.

She hated how her hands trembled. She hated more that Uthgar, of all men, might
notice.

Then the sound came.

A hollow whistle, sharp and grating, like wind dragged over splintered bone. It
wasn’t coming closer—it simply existed. And then it _was closer_, as though the
distance between “there” and “here” had never mattered.

The Spirit stood before them.

It didn’t step into view. It didn’t _move_. It simply manifested—a skeletal shape
wreathed in shadow, its limbs impossibly long, its face a gaping void. Darkness
clung to it like drowning men to driftwood, and the air grew colder still, thick
with the sweet-sick stench of rot.

The torches guttered as it spoke, the words not reaching ears so much as sinking
into the marrow.

“_She was taken._”

Elaris stiffened, a shudder running the length of her spine. The runes flared,
their green light licking at the shadows like hungry tongues. And deep in her mind,
something answered—not a thought of her own, but an old, foreign certainty. **It
was speaking of her.**

“_A child of blood. A child of guardians._”

The Spirit’s head jerked toward her with a sickening, insectile snap. Pressure
coiled in her skull, not on her body but on her very _self_, peeling back memories
she’d locked away for years.

“_He hunts. He collects. He seeks to become._”

The stench of rot thickened until it seemed to curdle the air.

Uthgar moved. His massive form shifted to place himself squarely between Elaris and
the creeping thing. His hand gripped the hilt of his blade, though every instinct
screamed the gesture was futile. Still, his storm-grey eyes burned like steel fresh
from the forge.

“_Will you keep what was stolen?_”

The voice vibrated through the chamber, through their bones.

Before Uthgar could answer, an invisible force slammed into him like a hammer. His
ribs locked, his breath hitching as something _inside_ was pulled toward the thing—
something vital, something he wasn’t willing to lose. His vision narrowed, his
teeth clenched. But he held his ground.

With a guttural roar, Uthgar lunged and caught the Spirit in his bare hands.

It felt like plunging into ice and fire all at once. The entity shrieked—a sound so
piercing it drew blood from Uthgar’s ears. The runes flared wildly, casting the
cavern in a nauseating green light.

Behind him, Elaris saw it.

The _relic_.

A palm-sized stone sat in the altar’s cracked surface. It was carved from obsidian,
so black it seemed to swallow the torchlight. Jagged runes laced across its
surface, faintly glowing like embers. It pulsed softly, as though in rhythm with
her heartbeat.

And she felt it calling.

_Take me._

Her feet moved of their own accord.

She reached out, fingers brushing the cold, impossibly smooth surface. The stone
pulsed brighter, and for an instant she swore she saw movement within it—like a
trapped soul clawing at the inside of glass.

The moment her hand closed around it, the world split open.

Blinding green light erupted from the altar, throwing shadows across the walls. The
Spirit’s form convulsed violently in Uthgar’s grip, its void-like face splitting
into a thousand screaming mouths.

Elaris gasped, her vision flooded with memories that weren’t hers—or maybe they
were. The men in crimson robes, their chanting voices. The gleam of a sacrificial
blade. Her own scream as iron shackles bit her wrists.

They hadn’t been her saviors.

They had been her family’s **murderers.**

The relic hadn’t _given_ her power.

It had simply torn the veil away, revealing what had always coiled beneath her
skin.

Her emerald eyes burned now, catching the light like a predator’s.

“_Elaris!_” Uthgar’s voice cracked through the storm.

The Spirit wailed louder as its body tore and unraveled, collapsing in on itself
until only smoke and void remained. Its final whisper crawled across their minds:

“_You are seen._”

And then it was gone.

Silence fell like a hammer.

Elaris stood trembling, clutching the relic as though it might vanish. The stone
felt heavy in her hand—not with weight, but with meaning. She couldn’t tear her
gaze from it.

Uthgar’s chest heaved, blood dripping from where his fingernails had split gripping
the Spirit. He turned, his storm-grey eyes finding her.

Something had shifted—not just in the chamber, but between them.

For once, Elaris didn’t smirk or fire off a cutting remark. She met his gaze, lips
parting to speak, but no words came.

They didn’t need them.

The green runes on the walls began to fade, and for the first time since they had
entered this cursed place, the air felt almost breathable again.

But they both knew—whatever they had awoken here was only the beginning.