Dawn crept slowly through the towering branches, pale gold filtering down in scattered shafts, dappling the clearing where the Vermillion Troupe had made their uneasy camp. The morning air clung cool and damp, carrying the scents of loam, crushed grass, and the faint metallic tang of old stone still wet with dew.

  ProlixalParagon was awake before the first proper light, moving quietly between wagons, checking yokes and wheel rims with habitual care. His sharp gaze flicked often toward the perimeter, ears swiveling with every chirrup and stir in the undergrowth. No mercenaries. No horns. No Hollow-blessed signs of pursuit. Just the slow, honest sounds of a forest shedding night.

  When Nara made her rounds of the sickbeds beneath the stretched canvas shelters, the faint murmur that followed her progress carried not fear, but cautious hope.

  The fevers had broken.

  One by one, the kits stirred from their sweat-heavy sleep. Their faces, once drawn and blotched with heat, now lay pale but calm. The older sick among the Troupe no longer muttered or clawed at their blankets. The sour stink of sickness was gone, replaced by the sharp green scent of crushed herbs and fresh air.

  By the time Lyra emerged from her vardo, leaning on her worn staff, the mood of the camp had shifted. Shoulders straightened. Quiet prayers were muttered to old gods and nameless spirits. Even the restless oxen seemed to stamp with a little more strength.

  “All of them?” Lyra asked, her dry voice carrying across the still morning.

  Nara gave a solemn nod. “Weak, but mending.”

  A murmur rippled through the camp — not relief, exactly, but the brittle, grateful kind of hope that folk clung to when too much had already been lost.

  Lyra’s gaze settled on ProlixalParagon as he secured the last of a wagon’s hitch straps. She inclined her head once.

  “We ride,” she said.

  And so they did.

  The sick children, still frail and fever-sapped, were carefully bundled into one of the heavy Conestoga wagons. Blankets were packed tight around them, the canvas sides drawn low and charms hung from the ribs — simple things, bits of colored glass, dried sprigs of sage, and knotted string. The other children — those not laid low — were clustered in vardos or walking at the flanks, chattering softly, too long penned up to stay quiet now.

  The rest of the Troupe fell into familiar patterns. Yokes were set, wheels checked, and within the hour, the line of wagons was rolling once more along the narrow forest road, leaving the ancient ruin behind.

  The atmosphere was lighter than it had been in days.

  Conversations rose in snatches — someone laughing quietly at a stubborn ox’s refusal to move, a pair of goblin boys arguing over a rock one insisted was lucky. For the first time since fleeing the salt flats, the oppressive press of fear had eased, though no one mistook it for true safety.

  At the head of the caravan, ProlixalParagon walked alongside Marx. The big man’s tanned olive skin was ruddy in the cool air, his broad shoulders hunched beneath a worn cloak, dark hair tied back from his weathered face. His hand rested easy on the haft of a heavy axe slung across his back, though his eyes were sharp, scanning the treeline.

  The two moved in companionable silence for a while, the rhythmic squeak of wagon wheels and the soft thud of hooves and boots filling the quiet.

  Marx grunted. “This stretch feels too easy.”

  ProlixalParagon didn’t look away from the undergrowth. “Easy roads are the ones you watch the hardest.”

  Marx’s mouth quirked. “Smart. Learned that the ugly way.”

  “Same,” ProlixalParagon muttered.

  The trees pressed close on either side, massive old growth with branches like outstretched arms and roots that cut jagged through the soil. Vines and creepers hung thick from the canopy, trailing down to brush against the passing wagons. Every so often, an ancient stone marker loomed beside the path — worn to almost nothing, the faded symbols lost to time and weather.

  Ralyria scouted ahead, her pale metal form moving like a ghost between the trees. When she passed back toward the front of the column, she offered them both a faint grin.

  “Relax, you two. The gods aren’t always aiming for our necks.”

  ProlixalParagon’s ears twitched. “No, but the Hollow might be.”

  Ralyria laughed softly and kept moving.

  Despite his words, even ProlixalParagon could feel the difference in the air. The forest was alive, yes — filled with birdcalls, the hiss of leaves in a passing breeze, the occasional chatter of a squirrel or the distant croak of a marsh bird — but it was clean. Honest. No unseen eyes. No scent of blood or smoke.

  The Troupe moved through it like folk half-remembering how to breathe.

  At intervals, the children’s laughter would rise, brief and bright as a bird’s song before one of the elders shushed them — not unkindly, but with a wariness none of them could shake.

  ProlixalParagon’s hand strayed often to the pouch at his side where the jury-rigged static tripwire rested, and his gaze never left the dark spaces between the trees for long.

  Marx caught his eye again, his expression unreadable beneath the sun-weathered lines of his face. “You think we’ve earned a bit of peace?”

  ProlixalParagon shrugged. “Not peace. But maybe a stretch of road without a knife waiting in it.”

  Marx snorted a rough laugh. “I’ll take it.”

  The road ahead curved gently into deeper green, sunlight spilling in scattered patches as the forest canopy stretched wider overhead. Somewhere beyond, the sound of running water teased the edge of hearing — a stream, or maybe a brook.

  The wagons kept moving. The Troupe’s voices rose, soft but steadier.

  It wasn’t safety.

  But it was movement.

  And it was theirs.

  ProlixalParagon kept walking, sharp eyes on the trail, the tools at his belt swaying with every step.

  The forest stretched wide around them as the hours wore on, sunlight thinning between the leaves and dappling the road in shifting patterns of gold and green. The Troupe’s wagons moved at a steady pace, wheels creaking over old earth, the occasional sharp snap of a branch under hoof or boot punctuating the rhythm.

  The children’s laughter faded as the day wore on, replaced by the quiet hum of travel — low conversations, the steady clatter of harness chains, the dull rasp of wheels against stone. It wasn’t tense, but it was watchful, the kind of quiet a caravan carried after too many days running.

  ProlixalParagon remained near the front alongside Marx and Ralyria, the three of them trading little more than occasional glances and muttered observations. His ears flicked often at distant birdcalls and the high, thin chirr of insects. A few times he caught sight of old stone half-hidden in the undergrowth: a crumbled wall, a half-sunken marker stone, the remnants of what might’ve once been a path branching off the main trail.

  Signs of old things.

  As the sun slipped lower, the light turning amber and thick with the scent of warmed earth, the road finally split.

  At the fork, a pair of old, leaning stone pillars marked the divide — one overgrown with moss, its surface worn smooth by centuries of weather, the other bearing the faint, almost illegible scrawl of an ancient name. The left path curved south and narrowed into a hard-packed trail that promised a straight run toward the coast.

  The right veered into deeper shadow beneath the trees, where stone ruins rose faintly in the distance — what remained of some long-dead town, its walls and foundations peeking through the underbrush like the bleached ribs of a long-dead beast.

  Ralyria paced ahead of them, hands on her spear as she surveyed both roads.

  “Left is the coastal run,” she said, tilting her head. “Straight shot. Good ground.”

  “But no cover,” Marx grunted. “And no shelter if those fevers turn again.”

  Lyra’s vardo rolled forward as the elder leaned out, her golden eyes narrowing as she studied the ruins. The old woman’s silver fur caught the last light of day like spun glass.

  “We’ll camp at the ruins,” she decided, her dry voice leaving no room for debate. “Better stone at our backs than open road. And the little ones need one more night’s rest before the last push.”

  No one argued.

  ProlixalParagon felt a pang of relief. The road ahead to the coast might be clean now, but it could turn quick, and without solid ground or cover, a bad night could gut them before dawn. Ruins might be old, might be strange — but stone walls still meant protection. A thing to put between their people and the dark.

  The Troupe turned, the wagons groaning as oxen heaved into the fork’s right path.

  The road narrowed and grew rough, choked here and there with creeping vines and fallen branches. But there was something oddly steady about it — a road built in a time before even the Hollow’s reach, old stones still half-buried beneath the soil.

  They traveled for hours more, the sky deepening from gold to bruised violet, the trees blackening at the edges as dusk claimed the day. Shadows grew long, and the chill of evening crept in on a low wind scented with sage and damp moss.

  ProlixalParagon kept pace, his eyes sharp on the path ahead. Marx walked beside him, the big man silent, his olive-toned skin darkening in the fading light, jaw set.

  At one point, a light drizzle began to fall — not enough to soak through, but enough to bring the earthy scent of wet stone and leafmold rising strong.

  It was near full dark by the time they reached the outskirts of the ancient town.

  What remained of it was little more than a scattering of broken walls, a few toppled pillars, and the sagging outlines of stone foundations, overtaken by brambles and tree roots. Time and weather had long since stripped it of roofs and paint, but the bones of the place remained.

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  A good place to set a perimeter. A place to vanish from passing eyes.

  Lyra’s voice rang out from her vardo, cutting through the dusk.

  “Circle the wagons. Kits in the middle. Sick to the shade.”

  The Troupe moved with quiet, practiced efficiency. Oxen unyoked. Fires left cold for now, though cookpots were set and coals banked low in case the night proved calm enough to risk them later.

  ProlixalParagon helped guide the Conestoga carrying the sick children toward a sheltered corner of the old town square, where a pair of crumbling walls would shield them from the wind. The little ones were pale but alert, eyes tracking the bustle of camp with the thin, wary hope of folk who’d survived worse.

  Marx hauled a load of spare canvas from one of the supply wagons and started rigging it into a makeshift windbreak, his broad frame solid as old stone in the gathering dark.

  The night fell quickly after that, heavy and deep, the forest’s canopy blotting out what little moonlight managed to pierce the clouds. A hush settled over the Troupe as they settled in, every ear tuned to the hush of wind through broken stone and the distant cry of some bird or night creature far off in the woods.

  ProlixalParagon took his usual post near the outer line, his satchel at his hip, jury-rigged tripwire already coiled in hand, eyes sharp.

  Not peace. Not yet.

  But shelter.

  And on the road, sometimes that was enough.

  The Troupe would rest here tonight.

  The last light of day had bled from the sky, leaving the ruins shrouded in the soft indigo of early night. Mist curled low around the ancient stones, thickening in hollows and broken archways, carrying the damp, earthy scent of old stone, lichen, and loam. The forest itself had grown quieter, save for the faint chorus of night insects and the occasional mournful cry of a distant bird.

  The Troupe fell into its well-worn routines, the kind that spoke of long years spent moving from one half-safe stretch of road to another.

  Oxen were settled and watered. Vardos arranged in a protective crescent around the largest of the crumbling structures — what might’ve once been a watchtower, now no more than a squat circle of stone. Blankets were unrolled, and cookfires, though small and carefully shielded, sprang to life one by one. The scent of searing root vegetables, dried meat, and bitter herbs rose into the air, chasing away some of the clinging damp.

  ProlixalParagon worked quickly, helping secure the Conestoga carrying the recovering children beneath the partial cover of a stone archway. Marx passed by with a bundle of kindling in one arm and nodded in silent approval. Even the weary kits seemed steadier — a few wide-eyed, half-whispered conversations drifting out as blankets were tucked around them.

  As the last of the wagons settled and the first bowls of stew began to pass from hand to hand, Lyra emerged from her vardo, her silver fur catching the flicker of firelight. The elder’s presence was as steadying as ever. Her sharp gaze swept the clearing, lingering briefly on the children before moving to the perimeter.

  She called the names of those assigned to the first watch: Ralyria, Marx, Kaelthari, and a pair of younger scouts. Each acknowledged the order with a nod or low grunt. The second and third watches were set with equal care.

  Then Lyra turned to ProlixalParagon.

  “You’ll go out,” she said quietly, her dry voice carrying beneath the hush of the camp. “We burned through more herbs than I care to be without. Not just for fever — anything you find that might clean a wound, settle a stomach, ease pain. We may not need them tomorrow, but if we do and don’t have them…”

  She let the words hang.

  ProlixalParagon nodded. “I’ll bring back what I can.”

  “And whatever else you find worth the carrying,” Lyra added, her gaze flicking toward the darkened ruins. “There’s old stone here. Folk used to live in places like this. You’ll find things.”

  ProlixalParagon allowed a small grin. “Always do.”

  “See that you come back before second watch,” she finished, and with a tap of her staff, moved on.

  ProlixalParagon adjusted the straps on his satchel, checked the sharpness of his iron dagger with a thumb along its edge, and slipped his caltrops pouch to a more accessible position. The mana snare remained tucked safely inside the bag — no need for it yet.

  The ruins yawned beyond the edge of the camp like a half-forgotten memory, mist curling through shattered windows and between toppled stones. Pale green moss clung to ancient lintels, and what little moonlight filtered through the trees turned the place into a patchwork of shifting shapes and half-seen corners.

  ProlixalParagon breathed in the damp, living scent of earth and old places, the faint metallic tang of rust and time.

  Good ground for scavenging. Good ground for trouble.

  He set out quietly, leaving the safety of the vardos’ circle, slipping between tumbled stone walls and past the ghostly outlines of what might’ve once been homes, market stalls, shrines. The sounds of the Troupe faded behind him, replaced by the hushed chorus of the woods reclaiming what men had long abandoned.

  And with each careful step, he scanned for the telltale signs of what he sought.

  Herbs first. Scrap later. And whatever else the old bones of this place were willing to give up.

  He ducked beneath a fallen arch and vanished into the ruin.

  The forest breathed on around him.

  And the night carried on.

  The ruins stretched out in mist and shadow, ancient stones looming half-submerged in earth, their edges softened by centuries of creeping moss and root. ProlixalParagon moved carefully, his sharp eyes scanning for the glint of herbs or salvageable metal. The mist muffled sound, and only the occasional drip of water from a leaning lintel broke the hush.

  Then — a faint clatter of metal ahead.

  He froze, ears twitching, hand slipping to the hilt of his dagger.

  The sound came again — not the steady ring of a patrol’s stride, but a lone, uneven rattle. He moved toward it, weaving between fallen stones, until a figure emerged from the mist.

  A slender Soohan elf, pale and narrow-shouldered, stood beside a toppled archway, clad in mismatched and battered armor. A single pauldron hung askew over one shoulder. His breastplate bore old scratches, though it had been carefully oiled. Chain hung loose at his hips, catching the faint glimmer of mist-muted moonlight.

  The elf’s silver hair clung damply to his face, and his frame had the gaunt, brittle look of someone more accustomed to sickness than the field.

  ProlixalParagon approached warily, his voice low but steady. “Bit late to be alone in a ruin like this. Didn’t know we had neighbors.”

  The elf turned, his pale gaze wary but not hostile.

  “I might ask you the same,” he replied softly.

  ProlixalParagon’s hand eased from his dagger. “Scavenging,” he admitted. “Gathering herbs. My people made camp nearby. And you?”

  The elf hesitated, then straightened — or tried to, his shoulders sagging slightly from the weight of his armor.

  “I am Arelis,” he said, tapping a gauntleted fist lightly to his chest. “Aspirant to the Temple of Lidos.”

  That gave ProlixalParagon pause. He blinked, brows lifting. Lidos. God of Mountains, Memory, and Stone — not a name invoked lightly out here.

  “Didn’t expect to find one of his here,” ProlixalParagon said carefully. “Especially alone.”

  Arelis’s lips thinned. “They would not have me. The priests claim my blood’s too thin, my strength lacking. That I was born with brittle bones and bad lungs, unfit to bear the mantle.”

  There was a raw, stubborn edge to his words — the kind of defiance forged under rejection, not defiance for its own sake.

  “So you left the temple?” ProlixalParagon asked.

  Arelis shook his head, a faint, bitter smile ghosting his lips. “No. I left to prove them wrong. Beneath these ruins lies a dungeon — an old place, a labyrinth built in the days when Lidos still spoke to mortals. I mean to descend it. To face what’s within. And to return with proof that I am worthy.”

  ProlixalParagon stiffened, a cold ripple threading down his spine. “There’s a what beneath these ruins?”

  The elf blinked. “You didn’t know?”

  “No,” ProlixalParagon muttered, glancing back toward the direction of the camp. “We passed through here for shelter, not sport. Lyra would’ve kept us clear if she knew.”

  Arelis gave a wan shrug. “Few outside the old temple records remember it. The entrance lies sealed beneath the southern square — marked by Lidos’ crest. Only those seeking trials by stone come here now… and not many.”

  ProlixalParagon let out a long, steady breath. A dungeon. And here they were, bedded down a few hundred paces from it.

  He eyed the elf, noting the tremor in his hands, the deep shadows beneath his eyes, the cracked seams of armor cared for with desperate devotion.

  “Most would’ve gone home,” ProlixalParagon said quietly.

  Arelis’s gaze met his. “I have no home but Lidos’ halls. And no claim there unless I earn it.”

  ProlixalParagon felt something twist sharp and tight in his chest. Brecken. His son’s face flickered in his thoughts, pale and fierce and stubborn as wildfire, no matter what the world told him he couldn’t be.

  He swallowed, voice rough. “I know what it’s like to be shut out of a place you wanted more than anything. To watch doors close and be told it wasn’t for you.”

  Arelis’s brow furrowed. “You?”

  ProlixalParagon chuckled dryly. “Different temple. Different gods. Same damn story.”

  He looked down at his tools, then back to Arelis. “Listen. That place down there’s no training ground for a single blade. If you’re bound to throw yourself at it, you’ll need people beside you.”

  Arelis hesitated, pride warring with desperate hope. “I don’t… have anyone.”

  ProlixalParagon smirked. “You do now. I’ve got a Troupe not far off. A human built like a stone wall, a goblin faster than Zudea’s own hands, a mana-forged brawler, and a Cataphractan woman who’d punch Bothys herself if she got in the way.”

  The elf’s lips twitched in the ghost of a smile. “That… sounds like a very strange caravan.”

  “You’ve no idea,” ProlixalParagon replied.

  He gestured toward the camp’s distant glow. “Come on. I’ll introduce you. Get you a meal. We’ll talk about that dungeon at dawn.”

  Arelis hesitated, then followed, his steps slow but determined.

  And together, they slipped through the mist-thick ruins, leaving the old stones and buried secrets behind — for now.

  The forest pressed close, but the road was a little less empty than it had been before.

  The soft glow of the Troupe’s campfires flickered in the mist as ProlixalParagon led Arelis into the perimeter. The muted bustle of the evening slowed as eyes turned toward them. Faces weary from travel and old fear studied the pale elf, his dented armor catching dim light.

  Marx, seated on a crate near the main fire, looked up from sharpening his axe. His olive complexion shadowed by the flames, his gaze sharpened as it landed on the stranger.

  Ralyria straightened from where she leaned against a wagon’s wheel, her polished metal plating reflecting the firelight. Her pale, artificial eyes flicked to ProlixalParagon and then to the elf, and the faint hum of her internal core shifted in pitch.

  Kaelthari, crouched by a small cookpot, lowered her gaze, ears flicking back beneath her helmet. The Cataphractan woman had spoken little since joining the Troupe days ago — a quiet, cautious thing in their rough company.

  From the steps of her vardo, Lyra appeared, leaning on her staff. The elder’s silver fur gleamed in the firelight, golden eyes narrowing as she took them in.

  “You bring a guest, boy,” Lyra rasped, voice rough as wind over stone.

  “Didn’t mean to,” ProlixalParagon admitted. “Found him in the ruins. Name’s Arelis. He claims to be an aspirant of Lidos.”

  That earned a flicker of interest from Marx. “Aspirant? That one?”

  Arelis stepped forward, offering a stiff, formal salute with his gauntleted fist against his breastplate. “I am,” he said, his voice thin but clear. “Denied by my temple… but faithful still.”

  Lyra’s gaze sharpened. “Why are you here?”

  Arelis hesitated only a moment. “There’s a dungeon beneath these ruins. An ancient trial of Lidos. I mean to descend it. Alone, if I must. To prove my worth to stone and god.”

  A heavy silence fell at that.

  ProlixalParagon cut it. “He didn’t know we were here. And I didn’t know there was a dungeon under our feet. Thought you should hear it.”

  Lyra’s golden eyes flicked toward Marx, then to Ralyria.

  Ralyria’s voice crackled softly as she spoke, words careful and broken by slight halts — the legacy of Prolixal’s repairs to her speech module. “A dungeon… under our camp is… bad luck.”

  Kaelthari shifted, her tail twitching, but her voice was soft, uncertain. “I… I don’t think it’s safe. Not… for him. Alone.”

  Arelis turned his pale gaze to them. “I… understand. I ask for no one’s burden. But I swear… on Lidos’ name… that I will bring no harm to your people.”

  There was something desperate and raw beneath the words. ProlixalParagon could feel it like a pulse in the mist. That old, bone-deep need to matter. To be something.

  “He doesn’t have to go alone,” ProlixalParagon said quietly. “We’ve been picking fights with worse odds. We clear it, it’s one less thing waiting in the dark.”

  Marx grunted. “And one more risk.”

  Ralyria’s head tilted. “Better… to deal with it… now. Than wait… for it to deal with us.”

  Kaelthari’s voice barely rose above a whisper. “I… I’ll go too. If… if the others… do.”

  ProlixalParagon gave her a small nod of thanks.

  Lyra’s gaze lingered on them all a moment longer, then she sighed.

  “Very well,” she murmured. “At first light. We’ll see to this.”

  A shadow crossed the firelight then as Nara stepped from beneath the Conestoga’s canvas.

  “One of the kits,” she said, her voice heavy. “Neris. Her fever’s returned. Bad.”

  The words landed like a stone in water. The other faces hardened, weariness replaced by grim resolve.

  Arelis stepped forward without hesitation, his thin shoulders squared. “If you’ll let me see this trial through,” he said, voice trembling but fierce, “I swear, by Lidos’ name and stone, I can… I can heal her. When we return. The old shrines below still hold power. If I pass their trial, it will be mine to wield.”

  His words hung in the cool mist.

  Lyra’s golden gaze met his. Measured. Heavy.

  “And if you don’t come back?”

  Arelis bowed his head. “Then… I’ll fall in the place meant for me.”

  The old matriarch studied him a moment longer.

  Then, a slow, rough exhale. “At first light, then.”

  Marx grunted assent. Ralyria’s internal core hummed. Kaelthari gave the smallest of nods.

  ProlixalParagon clapped a hand to Arelis’s shoulder. “You’re not alone anymore, stone-boy.”

  Arelis managed a weary, grateful smile.

  And as the mist thickened, the old ruins watched silently, their ancient stones bearing witness to old promises and new debts.

  The night deepened.

  And beneath their feet, something waited.