I study Haven's walls, my hollow gaze turns towards every gap and missing stone. Ancient blocks meet newer repairs—wooden braces and salvaged metal plates filling places where time left gaping wounds.

  The living do what they can with what little they have.

  A patrol paces the battlements above, their torchlight throwing flickering shapes across the gray masonry. Each time they reach the section where I stand below, they hesitate, weapons tight in sweaty hands. From their fear, tension comes, energy wasted when it should be spent watching the horizon.

  I trace deep gouges in the stone near my position—claw marks from past horrors that tried to breach these walls. Some stretch higher than I can reach

  That crumbling section, partially rebuilt with timber, shows where something massive hammered through.

  The patrol passes again. Their boots scrape stone, echoing like the scratching of rats. One guard stumbles, his torch clattering against the wall. He rights himself, but his eyes never leave my form.

  "Steady," another mumbles. "It's not moving against us."

  "Yet," comes the reply.

  They're right to be wary.

  The world beyond the walls breeds monsters beyond counting.

  A distant howl draws my attention. Different from the shadow hounds—deeper, hungrier. The patrol stiffens, torches swinging toward the sound. Their fear has purpose now, directed outward where it belongs.

  The scratches in the wall tell the rest. Some monsters died here. Others retreated to hunt again. Many succeeded in taking what they wanted, supplies, livestock, lives.

  Each mark is a story of endless struggle.

  I trace the wall's weathered surface. Ancient ward-marks pulse beneath my skeletal finger.

  "Keep watch!" A voice calls above again.

  Others have heard the howls. Boot steps shuffle across wooden platforms.

  But my purpose remains towards the wall.

  The wards tell a story my bones remember. Dwarven siege-craft merged with elven protection spells, layered like the stones themselves. But there's more newer marks cut between the old.

  Crude but effective symbols etched by desperate hands.

  Someone has maintained these defenses, adding fresh wards from after the memory from the bones I carry. Their work lacks the refined power of the ancients, yet serves its purpose.

  Determination carved into stone.

  My fingers find a patch where newer wards intersect with old. The wall's structure pulses with faint traces of old magic. Ward anchors, their power nearly depleted. My bones resonate with their dying light, recognition without memory.

  These wards once held greater power, before corruption seeped into their foundations. Now they flicker, sustained more by faith than force.

  Yet they endure.

  A guard above coughs.

  I keep moving. Keep searching.

  Once more, I place my hand against the stone. Magic tingles through yellowed bone, seeking connection. Something pulses beneath Haven's foundations.

  Wrong. Hungry. Patient.

  A memory surfaces, fragmented but clear: Haven wasn't always a refuge. Before the walls rose, this was a forward command post. Something was buried here during the final battle, not a gift, but a curse left by demons in their wake.

  I press my hand against the wall, and something pulses beneath, wrong and hungry. Ancient magic tingles through my bones, carrying fragments of memory: Haven wasn't built as a refuge. Before these walls rose, this was a forward command post. And beneath it.

  My sword hand clenches. There's something buried here, left by demons in before reprieve.

  A seed of corruption, a dark heart pulsing in Haven's foundations.

  Something that like me has awakened.

  The pull of duty shifts downward. These walls hide tunnels below, passages where supplies were once stored. Now scavengers use them to bring back resources unseen.

  But they're not safe. Not anymore.

  I trace fingers along foundation stones until metal scrapes against something different, a grate half-buried under debris. Clearing it reveals an iron hatch, its surface eaten by time.

  Drainage perhaps, or escape route.

  Ancient hinges shriek as I wrench it open. The sound echoes down stone shaft, carrying too far for simple sewers. Stale air rushes up, bringing scents of wet stone and older rot.

  The passage opens into Haven's foundations. Corroded rungs descend into darkness, metal eaten thin. The first rung crumbles at my touch. Each handhold requires testing as I descend.

  My hollow sockets need no light, but blue-white glow from within casts strange shadows as I lower myself into the tunnel mouth. Each step sends flakes of rust drifting down into depths that swallow sound.

  Black liquid weeps from the tunnel's ceiling in steady drops, each impact eating small craters into stone below. The air grows thick, heavy with malevolence that would steal breath from living lungs.

  A thing of corruption that speaks of ancient rot.

  My bones care nothing for breath.

  I descend deeper, armored feet finding purchase on slick stone. The darkness here moves wrong, not the honest shadow of depths, but something alive and aware. It recoils from my presence, drawing back like a wounded beast. Whatever power animates these chosen bones stands opposed to the heart's corruption.

  The tunnel mouth above shrinks to a pale square, then vanishes completely as I round the first bend. Haven's foundations press close, centuries of stone shoulders hunched against the corruption that gnaws their roots.

  The pull grows stronger as I advance deeper. Ancient weapons line the walls, their steel turned black and brittle. I recognize their make, but remember nothing of those who wielded them.

  The path splits ahead. Crude torch brackets mark the right passage, Haven's lifeline for supplies. But duty drags my bones left, toward darker depths where the walls turn jagged, unworked stone replacing careful masonry.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Scattered debris tells its own tale. A broken lantern, glass ground to powder beneath my feet. Half a leather boot, its mate nowhere in sight. A knife recently started to rust, dropped, not placed.

  The rock face bears deep gouges, newer than the tunnel itself.

  Something dragged bodies through here.

  Dark stains mark a desperate struggle, splashed across stone at shoulder height. The corruption flowing down these walls seems thicker, more viscous. Each drop leaves smoking pits in the stone.

  I trace claw marks that curve upward, vanishing into shadows. . The scrapes grow deeper as they ascend, desperation carved into rock.

  Someone tried to climb away. They failed.

  A tattered pack slumps against the wall, its contents spilled across the floor. Molded rations. Frayed rope. A map reduced to wet pulp by seeping moisture. The leather bears tooth marks.

  These tunnels hold more than mere darkness. They hide hunger that remembers the taste of flesh.

  My sword hand flexes. The corruption here feels different, more concentrated. Personal. This is not mere seepage from above, but something cultivated. Deliberate.

  The rough walls press closer, squeezing the path until armor scrapes stone with each step. No living human could navigate this cramped space without brushing those corrupted surfaces.

  They would not survive the touch.

  I follow duty's pull away from the scavenger's reinforced tunnel, drawn left where the passage narrows into rough, unworked stone. The walls here show no tool marks—only savage gouges, as if some beast clawed its path through earth.

  Dropping to my knees, I press forward as the ceiling forces me lower. My armor scrapes rock, sending tremors through bone. Dirt crumbles between my ribs.

  The corruption thickens, black drops seeping from every surface.

  My fingers sink into loose soil as I pull myself deeper.

  Something pulses ahead, drawing these bones onward.

  A collapsed section blocks the way. I tear through, pieces of armor catching and breaking free. The shell matters less than reaching what calls below.

  My hands strike something harder than stone—metal, ancient and cold to even these senseless bones.

  The tunnel opens to a chamber too precise for nature's work. Master craftsmen carved these walls, but corruption has claimed their art. Black crystals sprout from every surface, drinking what little light my form casts.

  But duty pulls upward, toward a crack in the corner ceiling. I wedge these bones into the gap, more armor falling away as I force this frame through spaces never meant for passage. My fingers find purchase in darkness above.

  I pull upward, shedding the last pieces of protective plate. Still duty drives these bones forward, ever forward, into the deeper dark.

  Breaking through root-choked earth, I drop into open space. The landing shatters bones that reform without pain. This chamber stretches beyond what hollow sockets can perceive.

  Corrupted armor and weapons litter the ground. Fresh metal flies to me, coating these bones anew. A nearby shield bears a lion against the sun, emblem brings recognition without context, knowledge without understanding.

  The walls curve inward as I advance, forcing me to compress further. The sword drags behind as I contort through gaps no living warrior could pass.

  The air grows thin, but my bones care nothing for breath.

  The chamber opens wider, revealing a circular space hewn from living rock.

  At its center, massive stones rise from the floor in a pattern too deliberate for natural formation. Their surfaces crawl with runes I cannot read, yet their power resonates through my bones, ancient magic that feels wrong, as old as whatever force animates these remains.

  Maybe older.

  The ground shifts beneath my feet. Not earth or stone, but something else entirely. I scrape away centuries of packed dirt with skeletal fingers. Metal glints beneath, thick plates now corrupted and twisted into organic shapes.

  Duty pulls stronger here, a call that drives these bones forward. I tear away one stone, then another, methodically clearing the path that calls to me. The final stone resists, but yields to strength.

  Black ichor erupts from the exposed earth, spraying across my frame. The corruption takes form, a mass of writhing darkness that pulses with unnatural life. Its surface ripple like black water brought to life, but thicker, hungrier.

  Eyes open across its surface, each one showing visions of different battles fought above.

  Tendrils of shadow-flesh whip out, wrapping around my arms and legs. The pull threatens to separate these bones. The corruption seeps between my joints, searching for weakness, testing the magic that binds me together.

  My sword arm strains against the tendrils' grip. The steel in hand lashes out and finds purchase in the writhing mass. Black blood sprays across my skeletal frame, eating into bone where it lands.

  The heart shudders at the wound, but instead of releasing me, it pulls harder. Drawing me closer to its core.

  Through layers of writhing corruption, I see it, a demon's heart awakening from dormancy. Each pulse sends tremors through the chamber, ancient muscle remembering its purpose. Veins of darkness spread outward like roots, their tendrils piercing stone and earth to reach Haven's foundations above.

  The mass flexes around my sword, drawing me closer. Black ichor flows down my blade, eating into steel and bone alike.

  Yet my grip holds firm.

  Each pulse sends waves of corruption through these dark channels, slowly poisoning the ground above.

  The tendrils constrict tighter, threatening to pull my arms from their sockets. My bones creak under the strain. But these borrowed pieces have weathered worse.

  The blade sinks into corrupted flesh.

  Ancient screams rise from the heart's depths, not words but pure anguish harvested over centuries. Black tendrils whip outward, finding purchase between my joints. They pull, and my sword arm separates with a sharp crack. More corruption wraps around legs, spine, skull.

  The mass of darkness tries to scatter these chosen bones across the chamber. No matter. Each fragment knows its purpose.

  My severed arm continues its attack, fingers locked around sword's hilt, cutting through layers of twisted flesh. The heart's surface ripples, trying to consume the blade as it has consumed countless weapons before. But this sword remembers deeper oaths than steel.

  The corruption drives tendrils through my ribcage, shattering bone. My skull tears free, vision fragmenting as I see the chamber from dozens of angles. Yet each piece fights on. Ribs become spears, driven by purpose into black flesh. Finger bones claw through tissue that shouldn't exist.

  Within the heart's core, countless eyes open - windows into Haven above, showing the fear it feeds upon, the despair it harvests. Each eye reflects a different fragment of suffering. Children huddled in shadows. Elderly faces tight with constant dread. Guards who never sleep, watching darkness gather at their walls.

  Black blood rains across the chamber as my sword finds another weak point. The heart's rhythm falters, its pulse growing erratic. Tendrils begin to dissolve, losing cohesion. Yet still it fights, pulling my fragments into its mass.

  But these bones remember siege. Remember war. Remember how to breach defenses from within.

  We strike through corrupted flesh like roots through soil, each piece guided by singular purpose. The heart's beats grow uneven. Eyes across its surface close one by one, fading.

  It bursts. Black ichor sprays across the chamber, sizzling where it meets stone. The corruption's hold shatters.

  These bones know the way home. Each fragment finds its place, guided by the same force that first raised them from battlefield soil. Armor reforms around restored frame. The iron mask clicks back into position.

  I stand whole as corruption seeps away into earth. The wrongness that threaded Haven's foundations begins to wither. Air grows clean for the first time in an age.

  Haven will know peace, for a time. But other hearts beat in the distance, beyond the Field of Broken Banners. More seeds planted by darker gods to harvest mortal suffering.

  I retrieve my sword from black mud and begin to dig upward. Armor scrapes stone as I claw toward surface. Roots and debris catch at my frame, but purpose pulls these bones toward light.

  My skull breaks through first, hollow sockets scanning the space above. Corruption-tainted earth falls away as I pull free. The tunnel collapses behind, burying the chamber and its dead heart.

  Haven's walls loom ahead. The shadows that gathered at their base writhe and retreat, their source of power severed. They dissolve like smoke in wind, leaving only scorched earth where they stood.

  Something changes in the air. The gloom that hangs over the Field of Broken Banners parts. Sunlight follows, touching stones that have not seen dawn in an age.

  I stand motionless.

  Defenders gather along Haven's walls, crossbows trained on my frame. More emerge from buildings, drawn by sudden light. Children peer between adults' legs, eyes squinting at brightness they've never known. The elderly shield weathered faces, tears marking cheeks as they struggle to look upon true dawn. Some fall to their knees, hands raised to touch light they thought lost forever.

  A woman in commander's garb steps to the wall's edge. Her hand rests on sword hilt but makes no move to draw. She studies my form with the measured gaze of one who knows survival's cost.

  The gathered crowd whispers. Some point where shadow creatures stood moments before. Others gesture to scorched earth around my feet, to collapsed tunnel entrance behind me.

  My skull tilts up to meet their stares. Blue-white pinpricks of light pulse in these hollow sockets. I do not move to approach.

  They do not know what they see. Their fear is natural. Expected.

  The sun continues to rise, casting long shadows from Haven's walls. But for the first time in living memory, no darkness gathers in those shadows. No corruption seeps from earth to poison air.

  Finally, the commander raises her hand. The crossbows lower, though fingers remain near triggers. She nods once, acknowledgment, not acceptance.

  That is enough. These bones ask for nothing more.