The air was colder as they stepped deeper into the crypt. The stone corridor stretched ahead in silence, a tunnel carved with patient hands centuries ago. Alcoves lined both sides, each a narrow cavity holding brittle remains.

  Dust drifted in the light of their torches, stirred by their movement. A faint scent of old incense clung to the walls, half-buried beneath the smell of damp stone.

  Their footsteps echoed too loudly, bouncing back from the dark ahead. The sound made the place feel less like a resting hall and more like a throat swallowing them whole.

  Horren walked stiffly. His gaze kept sliding toward the alcoves, then away again. His hand stayed on his knife, his jaw hard. For a moment it seemed he meant to speak, but for once the words stayed behind his teeth.

  The faintest scratching noise reached them. A whisper of claws in the moss and rubble. Marvel stopped. Her eyes narrowed, her body tense. Without explanation, her form folded into fur and shadow. A sleek cat landed softly on the stone, whiskers quivering. She crept forward with the slow care of a hunter, her tail twitching.

  She pounced on a rat, but it scrambled loose and skittered away. She chased after it swiftly.

  At first it was almost a relief to watch her. A small distraction, her paws patting at the cracks in the stone. Then the scratching multiplied. It spread from one wall to both, then to the ceiling above them. Dozens of tiny claws skittered in every direction. When Marvel sprang after one rat, the others poured out behind it. A tide of fur and teeth swarmed through the alcoves.

  Her playful pursuit turned frantic. She scrambled back down the hall, the flood of vermin at her heels. Their red eyes shone faintly in the dark, their squeals high and sharp.

  They swarmed, biting and clawing at ankles. Lillyth squealed and began backing away. Alkibiades started kicking downwards. Crunching the attacking vermin.

  “Nasty lil fuckers,” Horren grumbled as he kicked one away.

  Aeyona threw both hands towards the floor. A blast wave of heat unfurled beneath them. Not enough to burst into flames. But enough to singe their legs and cause the rats to scurry away in fear.

  “There goes our leg hairs,” Al complained.

  “Hey, free shave,” Aeyona chuckled.

  “At least it wasn't more fire this time,” Al sighed, “though some light would help.” He looked their way.

  “You went to get supplies, but no torches?” Lillyth asked.

  He shook his head in response.

  “I've got it,” Aeyona volunteered.

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  Aeyona lifted her hand. A bead of light sparked into being at her fingertips. It grew into a shining sphere. She sent it forward, and the orb drifted silently down the corridor. The glow stretched the shadows back as it rolled across the floor. It revealed row after row of alcoves, row after row of skulls and bones. And the bones were moving.

  “Shit,” Al muttered.

  Skeletal hands slid out from the stone. Finger bones clawed the air. Skulls shifted and rolled, their sockets catching the light as if they had eyes once again. In the corners of vision, where the light faltered, spirits flickered like smoke. They clung to the edges of the orb’s glow and then vanished again into the black.

  The light moved further ahead, and the dead stirred more violently.

  Stone cracked beneath them. A section of floor sagged with a terrible groan. Dust cascaded into the pit below as part of the slab gave way. Alkibiades stumbled, his balance tipping. Horren seized him by the arm, dragging him back to safety as stones tumbled into the dark. The hollow echo from below seemed to go on forever.

  Lillyth let out a sharp breath. She gripped her chest as if struck. The whispers struck her all at once, not with sound but with weight. Every alcove pressed its grief upon her. Every skull carried the echo of its last scream. She heard mothers weeping. She heard warriors choking on blood. She heard the hollow sobs of children who had never grown. The weight bent her knees, her eyes wide and shimmering with panic.

  They paused in their crawl from the alcoves. Heads tilted. Empty sockets turned to her, not with hunger but with an unsettling awareness. Some drew nearer, but slowly, circling with the hesitation of predators who had seen fire. Others ignored her entirely and drifted past, blind to her presence.

  Aeyona saw Lillyth falter and cried out. Her voice cracked with urgency. She tried to cast, but her focus slipped. The shield she meant to summon collapsed in on itself and detonated outward. A shockwave burst from her palm, the force knocking the dust into a choking storm. The flash seared their eyes. Bones rattled loose from the alcoves, clattering onto the stone like rain.

  “Can I cast one damn thing correctly?” she cried out in frustration.

  The chaos broke Marvel’s fear. She stumbled, her small body trembling. Then the change came. Her form stretched and rippled. Fur darkened, muscle swelled, claws sparked against the stone. Where the cat had fled, a panther landed with a growl, its eyes catching the failing light.

  The first skeleton lunged from the nearest alcove, its ribs scraping the walls as it dragged free. Marvel met it head-on. Her claws hooked its spine and tore it in half with a snarl. Bone shards scattered. Another came from behind her. She spun low and swiped its legs from under it, her growl rolling deep through the corridor.

  Horren charged in beside her. His blade flared faintly crimson. Each swing carved a streak of red through the air, the power in his veins burning bright. The crescent of blood caught a skeleton’s neck, sheared through, and continued into the one behind it.

  Aeyona steadied her breath. The air around her shimmered. She spoke words that vibrated like the hum of metal struck against stone. Fire gathered at her fingertips, but this time she held it in check. She drew in the heat from the air and then released it.

  A wave of burning light burst outward, igniting the shadows. Skulls screamed as they were scorched. The corridor flickered with every color of flame before settling into red.

  Alkibiades ducked under a swinging bone club and drove his sword through the attacker’s spine. The blade pinned it to the wall. He ripped it free in one motion, the bones collapsing at his feet. He turned the momentum into a slash across the next creature’s chest, cleaving through ribs like brittle glass.

  Every move was precise. No wasted motion. His eyes followed the flow of the fight, not just what was before him but how the next few strikes would unfold.

  Marvel roared. Her paw came down on a skull, crushing it to powder. Another skeleton climbed onto her back, clinging with bone fingers. She rolled violently, slammed it into the ground, and crushed it beneath her weight. Her growls echoed, filling the chamber with something primal that drowned out the undead’s clatter.

  Lillyth forced herself upright. The whispering voices still clawed at her mind, but she extended her hand. Soft ripples flowed from her palm, spreading across the ground like invisible water.

  Wherever it touched, the movements of the dead slowed. The glow seeped into the bones, dimming their hunger. For a heartbeat the undead hesitated, caught between fury and memory. That was enough.

  Horren’s blood blade came down through the nearest skull, cleaving it clean. He spun, parried a claw swipe, then drove his sword upward beneath its jaw. The skeleton shattered in a shower of splinters.

  Aeyona’s next spell spiraled from her fingers in ribbons of fire. She hurled them forward, and they snaked between her allies, coiling around the remaining undead. The fire tightened, burning bright until nothing but ash and heat shimmered in the corridor.

  Alkibiades exhaled sharply, his sword lowering. The final undead wailed, broke apart, and crumbled to the floor. Silence rushed back in. A raw, ringing silence filled only by their uneven breathing.

  The stones beneath them were cracked and blackened. Fragments of bone littered the ground. The air tasted of smoke and salt. None spoke for a long moment.

  Then they saw the figure.

  At the end of the corridor a man in a dark robe stood in the glow of Aeyona’s floating orb. His face was pale, his eyes sharp. He did not approach. He looked at them for a moment, then turned. The cloth of his robe whispered as he retreated deeper into the crypt.

  Alkibiades lowered his sword, his tone low. “He is not afraid of us. He is going for reinforcements.”

  There was nothing left but to follow.