She faded in and out of consciousness, the clinking rattle of chains ringing in her ears like the clang of a church bell.

  Flashes remained of her half-lucid moments. A blurry haze of being dragged down an alley, flames in the distance, swaddled in chains, Scruffy walking alongside her boots.

  The distinct scrape of chains on chains on stone and rattling grates, jostling her, filling her ears.

  Sudden changes in orientation waking her for just a couple seconds, hazy blurs of hanging over endless chasms, softly swinging while two other bodies hung in her peripheral vision, clangs echoing in the murky abyss.

  The next time she woke, it was to the sensation of the chains around her jostling her as they unwrapped, eyes swimming, blurry as she tensed.

  Her eyes settled on a familiar sight. The Butchers. Or rather, their trapper, the only one she remembered surviving the encounter with the wolf the first time she met the monster.

  She stiffened, eyes glancing around.

  They were in an abandoned house, half-destroyed. The wall had been caved in and torn by something big and heavy far before they got here.

  Jagged glass adorned tiny windows, showing nothing but pipes and grime beyond. Fleabag’s form lay crumpled in the corner of what seemed to be a kitchen, bones and flesh audibly snapping back into place as it regenerated. Emhreeil lay limp next to it. Furniture, rusted through and ruined, was speckled around the house, forming sharp shapes in the dim yellow light.

  Out of the jagged hole in the wall, muffled sounds of human life came up, distant, far below.

  The hiss of steam mixed with the rumble of pipeworks filtered through the walls like a breathing cage, raising and falling, something rattling in the corner of the ceiling every few seconds.

  Her heart hammered in her chest as her eyes moved back to the trapper, who finally gathered the last of his chains, and stood in front of her.

  His head didn’t tilt down. He was staring at the wall above her, yet she could swear he was looking right at her.

  The more she observed him, the more unnatural he was from up close.

  She couldn’t see his chest moving at all. Neither his limbs. He had the stillness of a statue, only the faint swinging of his traps and chains adding motion.

  She shifted, eyes flicking down as her breaths deepened, and pausing when she realized that she wasn’t bound or restrained, at all.

  Yes, she was unarmed, but she could fight back.

  Her position was still far from advantageous.

  The trapper wordlessly turned, and dug out a saw from his pack, immediately getting to work, sawing through… a metal table?

  His movements made her spine tighten with unease.

  He moved like a clockwork doll. Movements in the shape of what a human would do, but not the way a human would. Too jerky, too snappy, too steady.

  As the scrape of metal teeth against rusty iron filled the room, she incrementally relaxed, confusion blooming.

  His armour was barely hanging on, revealing bark-like musculature that seemed to shift and curl before her eyes in the dim darkness of the home. Something creaked and clacked strangely when his movements turned snappy.

  While curiosity tugged at her, she was more concerned with why he had fought alongside the wolf. Why he wasn’t restraining them and dragging them back to Ironheart. Or killing them.

  Her remaining caution faded quickly when Scruffy suddenly padded over from another room, depositing whatever metal bits she had gathered next to the trapper, who ignored her. Scruffy then turned towards her, and with a frog-like croak of joy as her eyes widened, rushed over to hug her.

  She was too stunned by the hug to care about anything else as little arms clamped around her neck, pleased goblin croaks coming out of her… companion.

  The memories of what happened before she fell unconscious returned with a vengeance.

  Tears rushed to her eyes, as she realized what she had to do, hugging the weird little creature back.

  I’m so sorry, Scruffy. I hope you have a good life. Away from them. Us.

  With exhaustion still tugging at her limbs, mind foggy, she patted Scruffy’s back and pulled away. Stumbling upright, she walked up to stand before the trapper.

  Resolve firming, she calmly told Scruffy to go to another room and not eavesdrop, and when she did so, Katherine lowered herself to her knees beside the trapper.

  And she spoke.

  And he listened, until mutely, he began to use a sharp gauntlet tip to etch what she wanted on a piece of metal, not questioning her.

  She took it, stashing it in a pocket, then staggered over to Emhreeil's limp form, collapsing next to her, lowering herself down, pressing her forehead against hers, tears running freely as her heart clenched.

  I miss you, she whispered in her mind, not daring to speak it out.

  She cupped her cheek, and leaned down to plant a long kiss on her forehead, salt burning her torn lip.

  Then she got up, and left, tears still streaming down her cheeks as she stumbled down rattling steps, miserable, cold, heart clenching into pulp.

  Alone, again.

  A small part of her wondered if maybe she should just give up and jump off a railing.

  It was tempting. The thought was warm, a comfort.

  The pain would stop. The misery, the guilt. It would all end with the crunch of her skull bursting on a metal platform like a ripe fruit. And she’d dream of better days until her soul faded into oblivion, guided by the Keeper’s messengers.

  Compared to the jagged shards of glass slowly forcing into her heart with every beat, it would be wonderful.

  But she had to try, just once, properly.

  Then she could say she did everything she could.

  Emhreeil woke with a start, heart hammering, her brain pulsing in agony, not helped by the deafening rattle of scraping metal.

  She raised her head, ready to ask Katherine to pipe down in a dazed, pained fog, then paused, uncomprehending, staring at a vaguely familiar figure illuminated by sparks, the flash of an arc weld dancing in her vision.

  Warped metal ground against her skin as she felt around in the darkness, the scent of burnt steel and fresh blood so overpowering it made her dizzy with hunger.

  Another arc weld lit the room up. In the flickers of white razor-light, she saw traps laid around the floor, teeth freshly sharpened and gleaming.

  A memory snapped to the forefront.

  Her eyes widened for a moment before she staggered upright, wing-hands bracing against peeling walls, ready to fight, heart pounding, only to falter when Scruffy walked in, and casually dropped down next to the bastard who had once almost killed them, pantomiming what she wanted on a piece of metal as the man inclined his head to her, a bizarrely robotic pantomime, like something not meant to move forced to do so.

  She couldn’t feel a soul. Maybe a fragment? Something too faint.

  …Was this even a person?

  To her increasing befuddlement, the man did as Scruffy asked wordlessly, bending the steel with his bare hands, then touching a fingertip against it, the room filling with a white, burning light as metal melted and welded together. In a few moments, he passed it to Scruffy, who took it with a thankful croak, bouncing it from hand to hand as it burned her skin, then turned around, likely working on some contraption or another, only to see her and pause, rushing over, dropping the piece to hug her leg.

  She stared down at the goblin, brain sluggish and disbelieving as she stiffly petted her head, her bony tail twitching and scraping the tip along the floor to feel the vibrations travel up her spine and wake her up, because she felt like she was dreaming.

  …What the fuck was happening?

  The last thing she remembered was… running through a burning city, then seeing… something.

  Vague flashes and notions about- something twisting and wretched which made no sense to her and couldn’t be articulated. Something about a- something shifting and spinning and reforming as if spinning on an axis, like a gear. The dungeon’s depths? And screaming. She mostly remembered screaming, hundreds, thousands, maybe millions.

  She had seen more, she knew it, but she just couldn’t bring it forth, couldn’t remember. Or perhaps her mind refused to. Like the echoes of a dream, the more she tried to remember, to grasp it, the more it slipped through her fingers like a fine mist.

  The words of that golem impaled on rebar, declaring its purpose, still echoed in her skull.

  And all that did was leave her with even more questions than answers.

  “W- where… where is Katherine? The brunette?” She asked, prodding at the mental link connecting all of them, and finding it one person short.

  Her heart clenched as she froze.

  … Who maintained the link? It was her, right? Or- was it the wolf?

  Or did it just exist now, acclimated to them? She couldn’t focus enough to remember. Was she concussed? Her brain felt like mush.

  Maybe there was something wrong with the link. Where was Kat? Why would she be out of range of it?

  The man wordlessly lifted a hand, and pointed at the hole in the wall, before lowering his hand back to his work, fixing his armour in bits and pieces, one weld at a time.

  She swallowed, wary.

  Katherine went for a walk.

  Okay, that’s… fine. They could wait, if this place was safe.

  She... she had to get Ghoul over for a chat, she realized. She was grateful to him, really, but part of her wanted to wring his fucking neck right now. Her own Skill from the ritual he made for her almost killed her just now, or it sure felt like it judging by the pounding throb in her temples.

  She would have appreciated a heads-up on the fact that such a thing was even possible.

  “W-where are we? Where exactly is she?” She asked, dry throat rasping like a file on a pipe.

  The trapper, his allegiance dubious at best, did not reply. Scruffy didn’t know either, as she let her know through the link.

  But in the mental images Scruffy sent her, Katherine looked strangely defeated, sad.

  Her stomach dropped as the fuzzy images replayed in her mind.

  Katherine… did not look like she was just heading out for a walk.

  After sitting on that information for a while, feeling vaguely disturbed, she tried to focus on practical things. Facts, not speculation.

  The mental play-by-play from Scruffy explained some things about what happened while she was out, and her disbelief mounted as she realized that not only was this bastard here with them without restraining them, he had fought alongside the wolf.

  He might have saved all of them, considering that whatever few adventurers were still alive by the end of the fight would have loved nothing more than to make up for their losses by dragging them all to Ironheart for that bounty.

  Or killing them, because whatever Scruffy had heard outside the doors had very loudly called the wolf a wolf, before ranting about a ‘Fenrir’.

  What the hell was a Fenrir and why did the sound or title feel weighty, significant, despite her lack of knowledge about it?

  That stank of… ‘minor spirit or deity’, according to her old theological studies. Or even worse, Fey.

  She had to get information on it, quickly.

  Answers weren’t forthcoming, and her skull still felt like it was being split in two by a wedge, bit by bit, so she shakily dropped back down, next to the wolf, assessing the damage with gentle, brushing hands, wincing in sympathy the more she examined.

  He was wrecked. His right arm was a stump, as were his two abdominal arms. Two of his four waist-scythes were shattered or torn off. He was missing a tail, an ear, a half dozen eyes. His fur was largely torched off, leaving swatches of writhing, regenerating skin where naked flesh must once have been. There was a giant rip across his abdomen and chest that had healed, but suggested that at one point, his guts were literally hanging out of him. His left arm was missing three fingers.

  The more she looked, the more she found, and it was obvious he used to be even worse, his regeneration working overtime already.

  The things he could survive now were just… unbelievable. She and Kat would have died with a tenth of this punishment.

  She felt bizarrely happy for him. Proud for how hardy he’d become. He used to be so small.

  Her right hand, furred and black as his own coat, a mimic, gently brushed fur stubble on his head, thumb pressing into the base of his ears and gently rolling, prompting a tiny, pleased grumble she felt through the floor, the wolf shifting his head a little bit to lean into it.

  She should pet him more. She missed it, the soft moments in between.

  And yet… she couldn’t help but note that this was yet another fight they narrowly escaped with their lives in. It was quietly infuriating.

  They’d come so far, yet, the threats only escalated with them. They weren’t thriving, they were barely keeping up.

  Katherine’s absence would have sent her into violence against the nameless ‘Butcher’ member in the main room, if Scruffy hadn’t seen her walk off with her own two eyes.

  But as the minutes stretched into hours, and the man began to make more traps, pantomiming and helping Scruffy with her own projects, she began to get worried. Really worried.

  She hated waiting.

  Deciding to get more information until Kat got back, she wrapped her bone wings as best she could under her tattered, singed cloaks, and ventured outside.

  She hid her eyes beneath her hood, and asked around for a lore shop. They were clearly on the border between second and third floor, still close to Ironheart’s territory by technicality, but they were so far above his main prowls that it… should be somewhat safe.

  The distances were still frustratingly massive.

  It took several hours of elevators and asking people for a good lore seller, librarian, anything with information. Eventually, walking into an Adventurer guild provided her with what she was seeking in exchange for some gossip about what happened on the ruined plates below.

  A few wary folk directed her up to an alley tucked behind a botanical spire a mile away, vouching him to be the best they knew.

  Eventually, weaving through alleys that seemed to curl into a labyrinthian loop, she found the damn place.

  Old Stunty’s Lore, Divination, and Curios.

  The initial impression she got when she went inside was less ‘good’, than it was a wave of pure nostalgia.

  It smelled like her home’s libraries. Old paper and leather and the faint tinge of magic in the air, like someone turned the texture of crystal into a scent, sharp and pure.

  She had few good memories in those libraries, but they all involved reading entertainment more than sciences, tucked into some corner with Katherine listening with graceful curiosity, their knees knocking together.

  A small smile slowly overtook her permanent scowl as she wandered in, deeper.

  Trinkets and minor artefacts shimmered behind glass, likely display illusions. The scent of old parchment and that particular brand of expensive nose-burning rune powder wafted in. Soft candles and light crystals swung from above, stirred by invisible wind.

  A dwarven man so frail and ancient it circled right back to being intimidating stood behind the counter, eyeing her with eyes too old to fathom.

  Dwarves were no elves as far as lifespan went, but still, to live this long, in a place like this? As someone so rare of breed as a dwarf? This guy was dangerous. He could be nearing three centuries in age, for all she knew. She tread lightly as she inspected the books, ignoring all of the magic ones to head straight for the lore books, the history books.

  Despite the small entrance, the inside was honestly gigantic. It was a whole library. A thin hall of objects and books that seemed to never end.

  A magi-mechanical eye floated behind her, watching her closely. It was annoying but she understood. Thieves were more common than customers, even here where it was more ‘second floor’ than ‘third’.

  She was also the very picture of suspicious, with her hood and… odd shape.

  Memories flooded back to her as her eyes swam through some titles on the shelves, her hand pausing on a familiar name.

  The Birth of The System was infamous. Some preached the book as gospel, some others burned it wherever they found it. Which meant this guy was not afraid of controversial or hidden texts. Perfect.

  She couldn’t help but swing the book open out of some kind of nostalgia, as well as a refresh. She couldn’t quite remember its contents.

  The book’s main claim was that long ago, when gods still turned their eyes down to the mortal world with regularity, they foresaw great threats on the horizon which would destroy the mortal world.

  The story went that… some of the gods banded together, to create a way for humanity to fight back these threats, to contain or kill them, or at least delay it further. A way to elevate mortals into more than just cattle for the slaughter, but an obstacle.

  The Great Dragon, the god of magic, and The Six-Eyed Crow, the god of hexes, curses, witchcraft, the lost and broken and forgotten and much more, banded together, supposedly.

  The Six-Eyed crow built a grand Hex, so large and all-encompassing it consumed the entire planet of Ergos and every variation and alternate of it, up to the edge of the atmosphere. They called it The Eye. It would read every thought, see every tiny event. Omniscience in a runic circle. The Greatest Hex.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  And The Great Dragon would make The System. A magical construct that used the information of The Eye to draw power from the primordial essences of magic and infinity, to give tiny chunks of it to mortals, to prepare them for the coming end of days.

  It made some sense, and had some proof. Unfortunately, she just couldn’t quite remember any of them, and she had no time to be reading this whole thing. Most scholars considered it to be religious propaganda more than a historical piece however. Trite nonsense, in short.

  She was about to put the book back before a small detail jumped out at her, which related to the wolf, and made her pause.

  Every couple hundred years, the church of The Great Dragon would band with the church of The Crow against “the System’s purpose”, which was… whatever they decided they wanted gone. Most of it was legitimate threats. Some less so.

  Mostly, it was religious propaganda to unite bickering nations into keeping Ergos from collapsing for another few centuries.

  They would work themselves up into a religious frenzy over this proposed enemy, and declare it to be the purpose of the System. This is the threat they must eradicate, for good this time. This is the coming apocalypse, the final one, for sure, dear believers, or so it went. If not, it was at least part of it, and thus, they were slowing down the end of the world. The System will surely grant them eternal power and bliss through the rewards of stopping the threat, if they are worthy!

  Or something like that.

  It never really turned out to be so, of course, but people never caught on. Or maybe they didn’t care, and just wanted to kill a threat. She could respect that.

  Far as she remembered, the Declaration of Purpose called by the two churches was what had made the wolves extinct. One of the most successful Declarations to date.

  It had to have been… Four hundred years ago?

  Which… raised another question…

  How the hell was the wolf a pup when she found him, if the last wolf was confirmed to have been killed four centuries ago?

  A Declaration was not just a march. It was seers, divinators, and precognitive magic rituals all employed with utterly disastrous costs, all to ensure the Declaration would be successful, guiding said coalition of nations and forces to eradicate the threat. It was how goblins had gone from a major threat to little more than slave chattel for the civilized nations, untold years ago.

  All the seers and ritualists had to agree that the last wolf was gone for them to declare it a total success.

  So for a few hundred years, the wolves had truly been eradicated.

  Then just... how did Fleabag exist?

  It didn’t make sense to her. Did the churches lie?

  Skimming through the book showed no mention of any Declarations, so she put it back.

  Questions for later, she supposed. If she got her hands on a noble's lorekeeping books, maybe she'd find something.

  For now; what was Fenrir, and where the hell was Katherine? Those remained the main two questions on her mind.

  Still, her eyes dragged past a familiar book once more.

  Carmera - A Brief Recounting of The History Behind The Factory. Bit of a mouthful.

  Curiosity budded once more.

  Not about Carmera, but The Factory. The official name of Carmera’s Dungeon, the only inhabited Dungeon in all of Ergos.

  Whatever made her collapse during that escape, it had something to do with the Dungeon.

  She just… couldn’t remember anything specific, solid, explainable.

  So, hoping to jog her memory or perhaps find a clue, she hurriedly pulled the book out, and cracked it open to the first chapter.

  She skipped and skimmed through impatiently, searching for a mention of The Factory. Soon, she found it.

  “When the front side of the mountain collapsed inwards to reveal a colossal inner cavern long left untouched, but most certainly bizarre, was when things began to change.

  For the better or worse, none knew, and it still remains hard to tell. The first expedition into the cavern never returned.

  Neither did the second.

  By then, suspicions were arising that this was another Dungeon, one of these unknowable absurdities and unrecorded wonders hiding beneath the earth.

  The third expedition was planned like a Dungeon dive. Predictably, they did not return either.

  The fourth time they planned an expedition, it was more akin to an army.

  An army which well and truly awoke the Dungeon hiding beneath Camirel. The Black Day began, and when it was over and the golems and monsters had all been pushed back into the Dungeon, a fifth of the island was in ruins as tides of bizarre monsters and golems rushed out of the Dungeon’s bowels.

  An event like this was incredibly unusual, even when something as usually alien and strange as a Dungeon is involved. It meant this Dungeon was powerful, and whatever it truly was, was filled with things perfectly willing to attack rather than hide until confronted. This drew attention, predictably, especially when Carmera handled and passed mail for thousands of officials across the twelve seas.

  The call for mercenaries and Adventurers carried through the world, and Camirel became the new hotspot for Adventurers seeking to test their mettle, powerful individuals hoping for something challenging enough to resume their plateauing progress.

  The Dungeon provided, and was named The Factory.

  She skimmed through in a hurry, her memory jogged, hoping to find anything relevant.

  Progress into the second floor was glacial and costly, to the point that Carmera had to instate its own standing army just to make sure they could keep the pressure up on the Dungeon, and not be pushed back, or even worse, let the Dungeon take back the first floor.

  This stalemate and the increasing costs of mercenaries and Adventurers led to Carmera deciding to finally start exporting the Dungeon’s iron.

  Thus, Carmeran exports suddenly ballooned, with the help of its standing army, farming the Dungeon’s golems for profit.

  Carmera, thanks to the Dungeon and the riches embedded within and around it, had become the most dominant exporter of metals and mana crystals in the next couple years. Nobody in the world remained that wasn’t buying from Carmera. Their exports were cheap, consistent, and the quantity ensured that everyone could buy some.

  This lasted for about only two or three years, unfortunately, as it was discovered that anything that came from the Dungeon quickly withered and wilted when taken too far from it.

  Its price predictably plummeted, as Carmeran steel quickly became a synonym for ‘temporary steel’. It was good for a while and cheap, but none expected it to last more than a year or two before it began to crack and wither. For many who had made large purchases, this severely soured relations. Talks of reparations began, and ended soon after.

  Eventually, however, The Factory’s reputation managed to attract many stronger Adventurers from overseas, whose main stomping grounds were Dungeons like The Black Scar, The Labyrinth, and The Tar Pits. For those unaware, those were then generally considered the harshest and most challenging Dunge-

  “Need help, or are you just here to read for free?” The dwarf’s voice rumbled through the store.

  She tilted her head, thinking about it. She closed the book. With her memory jogged, she remembered the rest. Yada yada, clear until the fourth floor, Leviathans arrive and settle into the sea around them, Carmera withers, trade dies, nobody can leave except with Airship or enchanter battleship, and then stagnation, until now. Simple.

  She was getting too distracted.

  ‘Fenrir’. What was it? What was its history?

  A Declaration of Purpose usually tried to erase everything about the threat, if they succeeded. Wolves were one of the few objectives they had success with, so any texts or such related to the wolves were damn rare, and dangerous to keep around. Having one found would have one usually finding their home burnt, at the minimum, depending on how powerful the local churches were and their social standing.

  Chances are, she would not find what she was looking for on any shelf.

  “I think I do.” She called out, turning around to backtrack to the dwarf.

  She came to the counter, and glanced for any other patrons. The dwarf’s bush-like brows lowered incrementally, annoyance building.

  “I heard something strange. I want to know if you have anything related to it. I don’t think it’s… shelf material.”

  The brows lowered into a wary stare.

  “Go on…” The dwarf rumbled, low and slow like tumbling boulders.

  “Does ‘Fenrir’ ring a bell? I just-”

  “No, get out, right now.” The dwarf snapped, abruptly poking her with a cane towards the door.

  In bewilderment, she let him, for a couple feet, before turning.

  “Look, I know it has to do with wolves, but-”

  “I don’t know nuthin about any of that, scram.” The dwarf spat, jabbing her painfully.

  Gritting her teeth, she ripped the cloak off, revealing her monstrous form, the wings that ended in clawed hands too big to be anything but horrific.

  “Do I fucking look like an inquisitor to you?!” She snapped, glaring at him. Her bony tail lashed at the ground beneath her, fuzzy black canine ears entirely out of place on her bald head, twitching.

  He stared, disgusted at the mish-mash of parts and incohesion in her build. Bone plates, patches of fur, coal black and bone white alternating in chaotic swirls.

  It… it kinda stung, actually. She used to have some minor pride in her plain beauty as an elf. Ow.

  “How much you got?” He rumbled, holding his cane close.

  She yanked the cloak back up, shuffling her wing-arms back under it like a vulture shuffling its back, and dug into her pack.

  Bits and pieces, and gold she didn’t want to part with.

  “Almost all of this. I need some left. Just- look, I heard it somewhere, I need to know. It’s really important.” She pressed, taking the pouch out.

  “...Fuckin pittance. Putting me in danger for scraps and leftovers. Dumb bitch. Lucky you’re the first interesting thing to walk in here the past fucking decade. Your dad fuck a dog or somethin'?” The dwarf grumbled, turning around.

  She grit her teeth, ready to leave before she attacked the little fucker.

  “Ye comin' or not, you sorry sack of dog parts?” The dwarf called out, twisting a lever that rolled a metal barricade over the front door behind her, before pulling a book which opened the wall into a hidden hallway. She hesitated for a moment, then followed, rubbing at her temples to ease the still-twinging headache away.

  It was almost a cellar. He didn’t let her look at anything, just put her on a stool, and told her to wait.

  He came back with a book, and handed it over. Most of it was badly burnt, the rest torn to shreds. The burnt bits were still illuminating faintly, some kind of stasis enchantment?

  “You tear a corner of that thing and you owe me more than your entire bloodline could ever muster, ya hear?” He grumbled in the cellar, and lit a magical crystal light above them.

  She nodded, opening it carefully.

  That Which Hungers - For Fenrir’s Chosen

  “All feasts are holy.”

  So spoke the old priests of the North, when the first worshippers lit their fires for the nameless wolf beneath the frozen moons. They prayed for the hunt, for the kill, for the survival that comes from taking life, and in their prayers, something answered.

  From the wildness of the world came a spirit with eyes like coals and breath like winter’s first death. Fenrir, the great wolf, born of mortal worship and forgotten blood, a lesser god among the pack of the divine. It hungered, so it hunted, and the great men of the north followed in its steps and learned to hunt like it.

  The Wild Hunt, seeing the beast’s brilliance, claimed him for their own, a hound of divinity unleashed upon the realms. They praised his fangs, his chase, his endless hunger. But hunger, worshipped, hated, sated, or revered, never serves. It only grows.

  The Hunt grew fearful. For the wolf no long-

  She scowled, resisting the urge to rub the smudge of coal away. It was probably embedded into the paper.

  She skipped down, through holes and wrinkled patches.

  -eir terror, the gods betrayed him. They bound him in chains forged from silence, eternity, and divine order.

  For a thousand eternities, the wolf starved in the void. He chewed through light. He gnawed at his flesh and choked on the echo of a harp. And still he hungered. He tore, and gnawed, and the world heard the sound of his teeth scraping against his chains in their dreams.

  But hunger is patient. Hunger is a blade that never dulls, only sharpens with time, as The Great Wolf’s fangs follow.

  And so the wolf broke his chains, as he is always destined to do.

  The Devouring of Eden

  When Fenrir rose, he rose in silence, not as a b-

  She skimmed down until the text became readable again.

  -ore through heaven’s roots and found Eden, the Daughter of the Hunt which had betrayed him, the Keeper of Life, whose garden was the flesh of all living things.

  She wept as he came, and the trees of her realm bled clear sap like tears.

  But the wolf knew no mercy. He devoured her heart, drank her divinity, and consumed the Eternal Flesh Garden, taking into himself her gift: the shaping of body and mind, the dominion of flesh itself.

  Thus, he ascended. Thus, his children became as he was, mutable, terrible, divine.

  And when the Wild Hunt came to avenge her, the wolf devoured his master.

  The hound had eaten the hunter. The chain had bitten its maker.

  The Covena-

  Yet Fenrir’s hunger found no e-

  Goddamn it. Half the damn page was destroyed as she turned it.

  -o he came before The Gatekeeper of Oblivion, who guards the last boundary between being and unbeing.

  The wolf laid his jaws upon the threshold and said,

  “Let me in, or I will devour your gate and all that it guards.”

  The Gatekeeper saw eternity in the beast’s eyes and made a covenant:

  “Then I shall let you taste what lies beyond my gate, make Oblivion a part of you. And when all creation ends, when nothing remains but my Gate, we shall meet again. We shall open the way into Oblivion. And together, we will war upon the void itself, and perish in the attempt.”

  Thus Fenrir was remade as the gate unlocked, and the world cracked in terror as tendrils of unmaking crept through his teeth, tearing and eating him as he ate them in turn.

  The Prophecy of the Endless Feast

  And so came the Age of Devouring. The wolf tore through the heavens, swallowing gods, faiths, and fables.

  He devours not our -

  -he higher gods, fearing his ascent, could not kill him, for he was a concept, the embodiment o-

  -y bound The Great Wolf again, beneath a bleeding sky, in the corpse of Eden’s Garden, chained in starlight and steel.

  Her eyes widened.

  That- she saw that. When her body and mind broke, in the ritual that reshaped her. She could swear she saw that exact scene, something writhing and howling in rattling chains beneath a bleeding sky. She hadn’t connected it to anything, until now.

  Oh shit. This- this wasn’t just some fairy tale. This was real.

  … Huh.

  That… didn’t... she wasn't sure what to do with any of that.

  Did the Dungeon think Fleabag was that godling in their visions?

  The idea was laughable, but maybe there was some connection.

  Regardless, the mention of a god, no matter how minor or big, never meant anything good.

  She backtracked, trying to stay positive.

  Katherine would be there when she got back. She just knew it. And then she would hug her and ask Kat why the hell she’d looked so sad in Scruffy’s memories.

  That hope drained out of her the closer she got, and was snuffed out like a candle as she climbed back up to the ruined house through the hole in the wall, and found the same scene as six hours ago.

  The odd trapper, Fleabag, and Scruffy, all doing the same things as before.

  Katherine hadn’t come back.

  The realization settled cold in her chest, chest clenching with anxiety.

  Someone must have taken her. She must have gotten lost and- taken. Maybe someone recognized her.

  Her eyes dragged back to Fleabag, his shifting form. He was changing his body again, preparing.

  Maybe she should be too.

  She stood there for a moment, numb, then turned, glanced at a passerby far below through the hole.

  …He looked like a good enough meal.

  She clenched her fists, one human, one wolf-like, wings shuddering.

  She turned.

  Stepped off the edge.