Permission

“Boss?…”

Bob burbled.

Shit. Reel it in, Nathan.

He straightened and dropped his voice into Mason’s steadier register. “Let’s get ready to head into the temple.”

Dane looked like he expected more—orders, strategy—then just nodded, quiet and sure.

The ruin sat like a wound in the clearing—open, raw, waiting. What might once have been a roof had long since caved in, leaving only the foundation and a sunken mouth of stone that swallowed the light.

Carved faces ringed the pit’s edge—half-buried, half-fallen. Whatever they’d been meant to guard, they’d failed. Moss veiled their eyes, and time had eaten their jaws away. The air still carried the heavy hush of the jungle, but it didn’t feel like outside anymore.

Kieran and Taron had gone a few steps ahead, standing near the lip of the ruin where the ground fell away into shadow. They were looking down through an exposed slope of broken stone—an opening that led deeper, its edge lined with half-buried faces and collapsed columns.

Doss was already on her way to join them, quick as if afraid they’d make a decision without her.

“This one’s new,” Taron was saying, voice low but clipped. “The beach and jungle biomes have been recorded before, but there’s no mention of a ruin like this in any Hollow Gate archive.”

Kieran studied the dark mouth below. “Maybe a new route.”

Envoy Doss’s tone stayed calm, but the edge was there. “Or another trap. Nothing’s gone to plan.”

Taron’s mouth twitched. “Well, it is a dungeon. Everything down here wants to kill us or toy with us—that’s basically the job description.”

A humorless sound left Nathan before he could stop it. Yeah. Everything wants to kill us.

He and Dane lingered a few paces behind—close enough to hear, far enough not to crowd.

Kieran’s reply came measured, decisive. “We proceed as planned. Draegor’s device pointed us here. We’ll find out more once we’re inside.”

He looked toward Nathan when he said it—half accusation, half logic.

Nathan kept his face still. Hell no, I don’t want to go in there.
But the relic had stopped pulsing at this exact spot, and Bob’s eager squirming at his hip screamed mana. Whatever was inside, it was calling to both of them.

He gave Kieran the best unbothered Mason stare he could manage and said nothing.

Doss’s gaze lingered on the entrance, sharp and assessing. “If another shift hits mid-descent, we’ll be scattered again. Maybe we should chart a fallback through the jungle first.”

“No,” Kieran said flatly. “We move now. It leads to our people, the rumored weapon, or something worse—but we won’t find out by waiting.”

That was the decision.

The group began to assemble, torches flaring to life as steel scraped stone. The ruin waited—dark, patient, too still. When they stepped closer, the air changed.

Sixteen people moved as one.
Kieran led, Taron half a step at his shoulder; Dane kept his usual quiet watch beside Nathan. Behind them came Doss and her two aides, crisp as blades in their measured strides. The Calvesset pair held the rear—red cloaks catching hints of torchlight—while the rest, a patchwork of mercs from scattered Eryndral guilds, filled the gaps in wary silence.

From the top, the ruin fell away beneath them—a hollow bowl of stone and shadow. The entrance yawned below, a black arch wide enough to swallow a house. Vines had turned to petrified roots around it, curling tight through the masonry like veins around a heart.

Nathan stared down into it and thought, that’s a mouth.
A monster’s mouth waiting to eat them.

Bob stirred in his pouch, restless.
“Don’t even think about it,” Nathan muttered.

He patted the leather to soothe them both. A pleased warble answered anyway.

They crossed the threshold.

The sound changed first. Bootsteps stopped echoing, swallowed by air too thick to carry them. Even the torches burned quieter—flames bowing low, smothered by something that wasn’t quite wind.

The first chamber sloped downward almost immediately, a corridor masquerading as an antechamber. The stone underfoot shifted from chiseled symmetry to warped growth—arches too curved, seams too organic, like the ruin was halfway to becoming bone.

Statues lined the walls—bestial effigies, their features eroded smooth by age. The eyes, though, had been carved again—fresh cuts in ancient stone, gleaming wet in the torchlight. Watching.

Nathan’s skin prickled. Human work? No. That didn’t fit.

They moved down.

Torchlight crawled farther into the dark until stone gave way to shadowed shapes—tall, still, too symmetrical to be natural.

A faint scrape answered their steps. Not echo—something else, dragging slow against stone.

Kieran halted and lifted a fist.

The line froze—silent hold. Listening.

Leather creaked softly as hands found hilts, steel whispered free of scabbards, and the air stretched taut between heartbeats.

Then—movement.

Stone grated against stone as one of the nearest figures tilted its head. The motion was slow, deliberate—like something remembering how. Dust sifted from its joints. Another followed. Then another.

Kieran lifted his sword. “Augments!”

Light raced down the blade, flaring along etched runes until it burned blue-white.

Damn. I really need to figure out how to get some mana.

The first statue stepped off its plinth with a sound like breaking bone. Its features were nothing—half-face, hollow eyes—but its movements were too fluid, its reach too long. The sound of shifting weight rippled through the hall as more began to stir, tearing free from the walls where root and vine had fused into their seams.

They weren’t statues anymore—just monsters made of stone.

Great.

“Contact!” Taron’s voice cracked like a spark—then echoed down the line as others took up the call.

We’re surrounded.

Steel rang. Torches guttered. Light flared in brief constellations across the dark.

Nathan brought his sword up, stance automatic, breath even. Stay calm. Mason wouldn’t flinch.

The first statue came fast—faster than stone should move, because stone wasn’t supposed to move. Its hand came down, too smooth, too heavy. Nathan caught the blow on his blade; the impact ran up his arms and jarred his teeth.

“Dane,” he said, low but steady.

Dane was already moving—one clean cut through the knee. The leg powdered mid-fall; the body followed, collapsing in a hiss of grit.

“Physical types!” Doss called from behind.

Another shape crashed into the rear ranks, shield-shattering. Doss’s aides dragged a man clear while Kieran’s voice cut through the noise: “Joints—focus the joints!”

Nathan pivoted, slashing low. Steel struck stone and sparked; a hum followed, subtle and wrong, as if something alive had just bled behind the surface. A pale glow spread through the crack like veins lit from within.

The air at his hip shivered. Bob shot from the pouch—a blur of swamp-green light—and slammed against the golem’s chest. Teeth scraped uselessly against marble hide; the sound was all clack and grit. Bob recoiled, then dove for the ankle instead.

Physical type—no motes, no meal, Nathan realized. Too tough to chew through raw stone.

He lunged forward, hacking twice, breaking through the weakened joint. The thing crumpled to dust.

“They seem weak,” he said evenly, loud enough for Dane to hear.

“Residual depletion,” Dane replied between blows. “Whatever drained the motes affected everything down here—even constructs.”

“Better for us, then.”

Nathan grabbed Bob mid-glorp and shoved him back into the pouch. Enough, buddy.

More came down the corridor—half-formed, still shaking free of the walls. The air stank of dust and heat. Sparks hissed and died where blades struck.

Nathan stayed anchored beside Dane, parrying, driving forward. When one statue’s arm raked his shoulder, slicing through his cloak, he ignored the sting, turned, and drove his sword upward through its chest. The blow split it clean; the halves toppled like felled trees.

At the front, Kieran moved like clockwork—clean, efficient, no wasted breath. Orders cut through the clash: “Left flank—shift! Seal the line!”

Nathan obeyed, every motion precise. Mason Draegor does not stumble.

The last of the statues shattered and fell, the sound cracking down the corridor before fading to nothing.

Stillness followed.

The group held formation—blades raised, breath held.

Only the dust moved, curling in the dim like smoke.

He looked around at the ruined statues.
“I think that was the welcome committee.”

No one laughed.

Kieran’s blade dimmed, the last of its light guttering against the walls before settling into ordinary steel. The silence that followed wasn’t peace—it was listening. The air carried a weight again, that same pulse of pressure behind the ears, like the temple hadn’t finished deciding whether they were allowed this far.

Taron moved first, scanning the hall’s edges. “We’re clear,” he said, but the word didn’t reach far.

They pressed on.

The corridor stretched ahead in a slow curve, cut from the same gray stone but shifting under torchlight—uneven, like the architecture was rewriting itself in small ways between steps. Pillars thickened and thinned, seams crawled, patterns appeared in the dust. Every sound came back too soft, muffled by the same heavy air that drank flame.

Nathan kept his distance from the front, close enough to look like he belonged. Bob was a warm pulse against his side, quiet but restless.

After a while, the hall widened again. Shapes waited at the edges—thinner this time, not statues but remnants. Bone, armor, the black collapse of things that had once been both.

He realized they’d walked into a graveyard.

Kieran slowed, one hand lifted for silence. Torches lowered, light pushing against shadow just far enough to catch a glint of eye sockets—empty, unblinking.

Then one of them shifted.

The first skeleton moved with practiced economy, not mindless flail—the remembered shape of a soldier, joints wrong only where time had stolen. Taron met it clean and low, blade shearing the knee. Kieran took the shoulder, weight behind the cut, efficient. Bone split with a dry report, fragments skipping like knucklebones across the stone.

Nathan stepped to the flank, putting himself between Doss and a second climber. No hum in his sword, no augment. He parried, felt the jolt up the bracer, pivoted inside the arc, and punished the exposed spine. The body collapsed without drama—just a soft clatter and the sigh of ancient air leaving the gaps between bones.

A third skeleton reached him quick and silent, ribcage spread wide like wings mid-beat. He cut through the sternum; the halves folded inward around his blade and broke apart in a papery crumble.

Bob thumped once against Nathan’s hip, indignant.

Nathan muttered, “Still physical types, Bob.”

He flicked the pouch open and dropped Bob onto a shattered forearm. Bob latched, chewed—this time he could actually get through the exterior, bone not stone—but came away sulking anyway, grit clinging in strings to his surface. A disgruntled chirp.

“About thirty left,” Dane said somewhere behind him—calm, precise.

They finished them efficiently. Just dust and the dry scrape of bone settling. The last skull rattled to a stop at the base of a plinth and sat there, patient as a stone.

That was... underwhelming.

Something smaller moved near the wall—child-sized, dragging itself with jerky determination. Nathan’s grip tightened on his sword. Oh, come on. Not a kid monster. It looked half-formed, limbs mismatched, head too big. He almost called Bob loose when Doss stepped forward from the rear.

She didn’t hesitate. One sharp kick sent the thing sprawling.

“Well,” she said, tone bright with interest. “Now what do we have here?”

Her expression changed—the arrogance drained, replaced by something precise and cold. She sheathed her sword and drew a thinner blade from her belt, a scalpel’s cousin glinting in the torchlight.

Doss gestured once. Her aides stepped in without hesitation—one for each arm, boots pinning thin limbs to stone.

The little body writhed, weak but conscious, its breath a wet rattle.

What is she—

Without ceremony, Doss knelt and opened it from sternum to gut.

The creature shrieked. Wet air filled the corridor. Doss flipped back a flap of skin with the tip of her knife, examining the twitching muscle beneath.

No apology. No shame. Just curiosity.

“Fascinating,” she murmured. “Two mana species fused at the tissue level. It’s still trying to regulate flow between them.”

Nathan froze where he stood.

A few hours ago, she’d only been annoyingly loud—an overqualified bureaucrat with too many opinions and not enough empathy.
Now, watching her dissect something still alive, he felt the cold slide of memory: Nyx’s warning, Sera’s voice—they’ll carve until the answers come.

The stag had recoiled from Doss back in camp. Now he understood why. Whatever it had seen in her aura—or her intent—he believed it.

His throat worked. That same calm would stand over him someday—scalpel-steady—if they ever learned what he really was. He could end up just like that little mutant thing on the floor.

He couldn’t let that happen. Not here. Not with her.

She kept narrating in that same even tone until Kieran finally stepped forward and drove his blade clean through the creature’s skull.
“Enough,” he said. “Science experiments later.”

Doss straightened, unfazed. “Take a sample.”

One of her aides was already pulling out a vial. “The Collegium’s going to go wild when they see what we’re bringing back.”

She smiled thinly. “Good. Let’s not waste potential data.”

***

The descent tightened into a slow spiral.
The air grew damper, walls sweating moisture that made their torchlight run in streaks. Sections had gone glass-smooth—melted, maybe, then cooled again—reflecting their light in warped bands. Nathan caught his reflection where the curve bent: Mason’s face staring back, scar over half his left face, jaw locked.

He forced his breath steady. Mason Draegor does not breathe like a man counting stairs. He looked toward Kieran. Strange that he’s letting me have such free rein. I know it can't be because he actually trusts me. Right?

They kept moving. Down, down, into pressure and dark.

“How deep are we going?” he muttered under his breath.

No one answered. Maybe no one knew. Kieran moved like a man following a map only he could see, and Nathan hated that it almost looked like confidence.

Then—noise.
Faint at first, echoing from somewhere ahead: steel striking stone, a shout, something that sounded too human to be echo. The entire line went still.

Kieran lifted a hand. “Hold.”

They listened. Another clash. Another voice—hoarse, desperate.

“Not beasts,” Taron said quietly. “That’s men.”

Kieran’s tone sharpened. “Forward. Keep formation.”

The pace quickened—controlled, ready. The air thickened with a metallic tang. Brine. Iron.

The sound grew clearer with every step—boots scuffing, steel striking, breath breaking raggedly in the dark. When the passage bent, flickers of torchlight danced across the far wall in ragged bursts.

Kieran lifted his blade. “Assist!”

The shout ricocheted down the tunnel. They surged forward—boots hitting slick stone, torches flaring wild.

They rounded the corner and almost collided with them.
Men, humans in black cloaks—filthy, bloodied, pressed tight against the wall—were holding a line against twisted, sinewy things that moved wrong under the torchlight.

“Frontline, with me!” Kieran snapped. “Reinforce their flank!”

Steel met flesh. The tunnel filled with chaos.

“Mana types!” someone shouted.

Nathan’s sword came up. “Finally,” he muttered. Mana types.

The first monster lunged. Taron caught it midair, twisting it aside; Dane carved low and broke its legs in one clean motion. It fell shrieking.

Another barreled toward Nathan. He parried hard, twisted under its reach, and drove his blade deep. Flesh split. Bob shot from the pouch like a bullet, clamping down where the wound opened.

The creature convulsed once, then went still—drained from the inside out.

Ew. That’s... disgusting.

Bob didn’t stop.

“Hey—one’s enough,” Nathan hissed.

Too late. Bob leapt to the next, then another—wet, efficient sounds; latch, drain, drop.
Each body caved on itself, husked in seconds.

“Keep the line!” Kieran barked, voice cutting through the noise.

Nathan parried another strike, side by side with Dane.
The rest of the monsters faltered; whatever Bob was doing, it unnerved even them.

Moments later, the last one hit the floor.
Silence closed in—heavy, damp, almost soft.

Bob looked like he could drain more.
Nathan picked him up and shoved him gently back into the pouch.

He felt eyes on him.
Kieran’s sharp gaze. We still need to talk about your creature.
He didn’t have to say it aloud.

Nathan turned away.
“Pace yourself,” he muttered. “You’re starting to look smug.”

Bob burbled delightedly at him.

The men straightened—panting, bloodied, but alive.
Kieran’s gaze swept over them once, counting, measuring, but he said nothing.

For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Except Dane. Barely.
A fractional shift—eyes narrowing, something unreadable crossing his face before it vanished.
Nathan caught it. He’d never seen that expression on Dane. Does he know them?

Then one of the men—mud-spattered, panting—lowered his sword and let out a sharp breath.
“Thank you. We thought we were the only ones left.”

Kieran stepped forward, and the man straightened fast, like reflex.
“...Commander.”

The word snagged in Nathan’s head. Commander?

Kieran didn’t blink.
“Field Marshal,” he said, voice calm enough to slice through steel.

“Right. My apologies. We’ve been down here fighting for hours.”

The soldier smiled—quick, like that could patch the moment.
Nathan didn’t think it helped.

Kieran asked about casualties, positions.
The answers came fast—nine alive, three dead elsewhere. They’d come from the jungle biome and found their way here.

It sounded neat. Practiced.
All the wrong kind of efficient.

Nathan’s gaze slid over them.
The man who had spoken first caught his eye—just a flicker—then turned back to Kieran.

What the hell was that?

He tried to ignore it. Everyone was stretched thin.
Still, his fingers rested against the hilt of his sword without thinking.

Taron said something easy, too loud.
The stranger laughed—a breath too late.

Kieran nodded once. “Fall in behind us.”

They obeyed without a sound.
Nine men, perfect steps, no one out of sync.

Even Doss hesitated a fraction before falling back into formation.

Bob shifted faintly against Nathan’s side.

Then Doss crouched by the nearest husk Bob had left and prodded it with her knife.
“Emptied,” she said. “Not cut. The residue’s gone.”

Her eyes flicked toward Bob’s pouch.

Nathan glared and shifted it.

She smirked.

“Let’s move,” Kieran said.

Of course. More walking.

Doss gave him room to pass, not taking her eyes off him.

Nathan stepped past her, careful of the slack hand on the stone.
The urge to check his own pulse passed like a ghost.

Mask on. Keep it on.

They kept moving.

The corridor bent into another downward slope, the air thick with dust and a slow pulse that might’ve been the ruin breathing. Torchlight crawled along the walls, catching veins of dull green ore and the faint shimmer of dried residue that looked too much like blood to be anything else.

The deeper they went, the less sound carried—every footstep muffled, every breath a secret.

Nathan stayed toward the middle of the group.

The newcomers had taken up the rear, silhouettes framed by the flicker of flame. None of them spoke.

Something about the way they moved together made his skin prickle.

He rubbed his thumb along the guard of his sword, trying not to look paranoid.
They’d just fought for their lives, that was all.

Still…

Up ahead, Dane leaned close to Kieran—just a brief tilt of heads, a word exchanged too low to catch. The kind of whisper meant to stay unseen.

Nathan’s gut tightened.
Probably about the newcomers. Has to be.

But the thought wouldn’t settle.

Does Dane not trust me?

He glanced away before either of them could turn, pretending to study the wall instead—the stone shifting from smooth gray to something darker, almost organic, like the ruin was growing again around them.

The path narrowed. The air pressed closer. Whatever waited ahead didn’t feel done with them yet.

***

“Take a minute,” Kieran said.

At last.

Nathan slipped away toward a cracked alcove half-hidden by a fallen arch.
He half-expected Dane to follow—but when he glanced back, Dane was lingering near the newcomers instead. Watching them. Guarding them.

Huh. That’s new. I'm sure he has his reasons.

He opened the pouch, and Bob oozed halfway out, glow steady in slow, content pulses.

“Yeah,” Nathan whispered. “You’re doing it again.”

Bob rippled—sated, smug.

“You’ve been following your stomach since we came down here.”
He rubbed at his temple. “Okay. Garbage disposal with taste buds. I get it.”

A soft burble that absolutely sounded like finally, he understands.

Nathan’s mouth tugged despite himself. “Nyx would’ve asked first,” he murmured. “Remember she did that weird staring contest with the stag?”
He eyed Bob. “You are definitely not like the stag, though.”

Bob brightened faintly, offended.

“I’m trying to do this right,” Nathan said, quieter now. “Can we even share mana? Do I need permission too? Receive instead of take? Is it even possible?”

Bob stared at him—unblinking, unreadable.

Nathan sighed. “Uhm... ohhh, I have food, Bob.”

Bob seemed to perk up at that.

“What, you’re waiting to see the goods? Wow.”
He snorted. “Bribing the swamp vomit with snacks. This is my life now.”

He dug through his pack until he found something vaguely sweet and held it out.

Bob accepted it solemnly.

Probably didn't even need the snacks...

Then his surface quivered, a thin tendril uncoiling—hesitant, almost thoughtful.
It hovered midair, reminding Nathan absurdly of E.T.’s glowing finger.

He exhaled once and reached out his fingertip to meet it.

Cold fizzed up his skin—the same static that had burned through him in the swamp—but steadier this time, like it had learned him.
The current threaded through his veins and didn’t fight back; it recognized him.

With his free hand, he fumbled out the relic from his pack and set it against his palm.

The pulse met the relic and thrummed once, then again, until it matched the beat of his own heart. Light shimmered just beneath his skin—thin as veins seen through frost—before it sank deeper and went still.

Static shivered through the air. The torchlight near him bent for half a breath.

Bob’s glow dimmed a shade, satisfied.

Nathan stared at his hand.
“You just...fed me.”

Bob gave a pleased burble that, frankly, sounded smug.

Nathan’s pulse was still rattling. He laughed under his breath, shaky but real. “Okay. So that’s permission. You share, I don’t explode. I like this plan.”

Bob rippled again.

He flexed his fingers; they hummed faintly, alive again. Mana—his mana—flowing like a low electric hum under his skin.

He blew out a shaky breath, grin breaking before he could stop it. “Alright, I guess we really do make a good team.”

Bob pulsed once—lazy, content. "Gangster."

“That’s the first time you’ve said that in a while!” Nathan laughed.

“Just to make this clear though, next time, ask before you eat half the battlefield.”

Bob stared at him.

"Okay, then!"

Oh. Oh, sweet mana! Thank God—or Bob.

Relief hit fast and bright. He bit it down. Back in action.

He flexed his fingers once, letting the charge settle. It hummed beneath his skin, even under his ribs. The relic piece in his hand pulsed faintly with light again, its rhythm steady. He slipped it back into the pack for now.

He drew his sword and tried to reach. The charge resisted at first—rusty, uneven, like muscles long unused. He exhaled, focused, and pushed harder until the current obeyed.

Mana extended from him in a thin ripple, catching along the blade’s surface and wrapping it slow, deliberate. The light climbed the edge like breath turned visible—faint at first, then steady, alive again under his own power.

Yesss. I won’t have to feel so naked in here anymore.

He wanted to fist pump. He didn’t. He forced the grin down, packed it behind Mason’s calm veneer, and let it burn there instead—quiet, private, safe.

“Permission,” he murmured. “If I need it, I’ll ask. You—” his gaze flicked to the pouch—“don’t freeload without warning. No killing sprees.”

Bob gave a glorp that was absolutely not agreement.

Nathan sighed, fed him a crumb of ration. Bob devoured it like a blender with feelings.

Seriously, a garbage disposal.

Kieran’s voice cut through the echo. “Form up.”

***

It was like a whole new world. He’d forgotten how satisfying—and normal—it felt to have mana humming under his skin. Every swing flowed clean; every thought sharpened the edge.

Now I find it normal. Unreal.

They cut through the next few creatures with ease—nothing dragged, nothing stuck. The weight of the blade met him halfway, every strike smooth, bright, right. He could feel the hum syncing with his heartbeat, steady and sure.

They moved as one. Light and steel and breath. Even Dane glanced his way once, eyebrows lifting—since when could you do that? Kieran caught the faint glow too, but said nothing, his expression unreadable.

The corridors bled forward, one into the next—stone into darker stone, air thick with humidity. Their boots struck the same wet rhythm, the same dull heartbeat. Relief dulled to routine. The hum blurred into background noise. Endless.

Until—

A flicker.

Nathan stopped.

There—across the far wall, half-swallowed by shadow—a seam. No glow pulsing, no drifting lights, just a thin line of white cutting through the stone like it had been carved by precision, not nature.
Dead. And yet not.

He blinked. No one else slowed.

Kieran passed it without a glance. Dane brushed by with his blades drawn, eyes forward. Even Doss’s torchlight skated over it without pause.

Nathan’s breath caught. He pulled the relic piece from his pack.
It thumped once—late again. Out of rhythm.

His pulse stuttered to match.

He stepped closer.

The light looked almost bright enough to see through, but there was nothing beyond it—no depth, no shadow, just a steady, sterile glow that made his skin prickle.
He drifted toward it before he’d even decided to.

A hand caught his arm, iron-firm.

“Stay on the path.”

The voice hit first, then the heat.
Kieran.

Shit. Nathan almost gasped. Where did he come from?

Kieran’s voice was low—quiet enough not to carry, rough enough to do something unhelpful to Nathan’s stomach. His grip burned through the sleeve, not cruel, just certain.

“I was just—” Nathan started, the words tripping over themselves. Too aware of how close they were.

Kieran leaned in, eyes a shade darker in the flicker. “Do you not recall what happened the last time you touched a wall?”

Heat climbed Nathan’s ears first, then the back of his neck. “I recall,” he managed, absolutely not recalling how to breathe.

Kieran didn’t move for a heartbeat. The light off the seam painted their shadows together on the wall—one shape, drawn and held.

Then, quietly—
“Then don’t make me drag you away from another one.”

Kieran’s tone stayed level. Completely unaffected.
Just doesn’t want the man he hates to die before he can order the execution.
Or maybe he just didn’t want him triggering something again.
That would suck.

Kieran released him, turning before Nathan could come up with a sound that wasn’t uh-huh, yes sir.

Nathan swallowed, hoping the torchlight hid the color climbing his face.

Bob burbled softly from the pouch—judgmental, amused.

No, this is not the time to be a blushing, useless dolt.

“Wait!”

Kieran turned back. Dane’s head lifted. Even Doss slowed.
Too many eyes, all turning toward him.

Nathan cleared his throat, forcing his voice steady. “I—uh—I want to test something. It should only take a moment.”

He didn’t add before I lose my nerve.

The seam called to him, soft and steady as breath. The relic in his hand pulsed once, late again, like it wanted the same thing he did.

He glanced at it. “You too, huh?”

Or maybe he’d gone crazy. Entirely possible.

Kieran’s voice cut across the quiet. “Try what?”

Nathan hesitated, then pointed at the faint white line bleeding through the wall. “That.”

Every head turned.

Dane’s expression didn’t change as he said, steady as a drawn blade, “Boss, that’s a wall.”

Taron folded his arms. “He’s lost it.”

“Right!” Nathan said brightly, trying to ignore how his pulse was hammering. “Just—give me a moment, yeah?”

Kieran opened his mouth—he could see the word no forming already.

Nathan didn’t wait for it.

He took one last step backward—
and vanished into the light.

***

When he opened his eyes, he expected blinding light—or nothing at all.
Instead, it looked… normal.

A side chamber, stone and shadow, shaped like the rest of the temple. The air hummed faintly but felt still, too still. Even his own breath sounded loud.

The floor was the same carved tile. The archways had the same curling veins of petrified root.
Only… everything looked cleaner. Brighter. Like someone had scrubbed centuries of dust away but left the weight of silence intact.

Nathan’s pulse slowed, disbelief fighting with relief.
Okay. Not dead. Not screaming. That’s progress.

He glanced around. The chamber wasn’t large—more like a waiting room between worlds. And then he saw them: more seams. Thin lines etched into the far walls, five or six, faintly luminous like veins under skin.

A vestibule.

He exhaled. “So this is where they come from. The motes...or some place like this.”

Bob burbled from the pouch, wriggling until a few tendrils slid free, questing toward the nearest seam like a kid reaching for cookies. His glow had perked back to hungry.

“Oh no,” Nathan hissed, catching the blob mid-slink. “Don’t even think about it. We’ve had enough buffet for one day.”

Bob made an indignant squelch, the blob equivalent of but what if snacks.

The relic in his hand pulsed once, twice, in slow, even rhythm—calm, content. Like it didn’t care which direction they went.
Great. No guidance. No instruction. Just good vibes.

“Right,” Nathan muttered. “Whole new chamber, full of opportunities, and the compass takes a nap.”

He turned back toward where he’d come in. The seam behind him still shimmered faintly—a vertical line of dull white.

“Guess I should… report back before I get swallowed by the architecture.”

He approached the light, hand brushing the relic for reassurance. “If this dumps me into another swamp, I swear—”

He stepped through.

It was like crossing an ordinary threshold—light, air, and sound shifting back into place around him, the pressure changing just enough to notice.

He stumbled back into chaos.

People were shouting. Steel scraped stone. Torchlight glared too bright.

A merc nearest the wall jumped so hard he nearly dropped his weapon. “He’s back! He just—he just popped out of thin air!”

Nathan blinked, disoriented. “Did I… miss something?”

Kieran’s voice cut through the noise, low and sharp. “What the hell, Draegor?”

Nathan froze. Kieran’s eyes were furious. Dane’s, wary. Taron looked halfway between impressed and ready to start digging a grave.

Kieran stepped closer. “You said a minute. It’s been nearly an hour.”

Nathan blinked again, dumb. “No—what? It—” He looked back at the seam. Still there, pulsing faintly like nothing had happened. “It was just a room.”

Doss muttered something that sounded suspiciously like dimensional rift.

Kieran’s expression didn’t soften. “You walk through another one without orders, I’ll seal it myself—with you inside.”

Like you could. Can't even see it.

Nathan raised both hands, palms out, voice dry. “Right, got it. Field trip privileges revoked.”

Bob burbled faintly in agreement.

The mercs just stared at him like he’d walked out of the afterlife.

Nathan exhaled. “Can someone please tell me what I missed before I start hallucinating?”

The silence that followed wasn’t relief.
Mutters rippled through the line—too low to catch words, but the tension hit like static. The newcomers had shifted subtly forward, and Dane had done the same, blade half-drawn without meaning to.

Nathan’s pulse tripped. “Hey,” he started again, “what’s—”

The floor answered. A deep, rolling crack ran through the stone—distant at first, then swelling into a slow thunder that didn’t belong underground. Dust sifted from the ceiling in lazy trails.

“That,” Kieran said, voice suddenly sharp, “started a few moments ago. Intermittent.”

Another rumble followed—closer this time. The walls seemed to breathe.

Nathan looked from Kieran to the faintly glowing seam behind him and thought, Oh, hell.

“I might have an idea.” He smiled.

Kieran looked utterly dismayed.

“Yup.”