The road bends east around ancient hills.

  League markers count down the distance to Candlekeep Monastery. Something pulls at these borrowed bones, not the raw compulsion that first roused them from battlefield soil, but something subtler.

  Older. Bolder.

  Books hold memory better than bone. Knowledge waits in those halls, preserved by wards these fragments half-remember. The arm beneath shield pulses, pulling, turning, recognizing familiar ground ahead.

  I continue.

  The ancient road splits and fractures, nature prying apart what man laid down. Roots breach the surface like broken bones piercing skin. Cobblestones, once fitted with craftsman's pride, now lie scattered, broken, overturned.

  Dead trees line the path, their branches reaching toward a colorless sky.

  Black bark peels in strips, revealing gray flesh beneath.

  No leaves rustle.

  The branches stand bare against gathering twilight, twisted into shapes that suggest an ending rather than growth.

  The air hangs still.

  No wing beats disturb the silence.

  No birds call their territories.

  Empty nests rot in the skeletal trees, abandoned seasons past.

  Even insects abandon this place. No webs stretch between branches, no beetles scurry through dead grass.

  It is a dead place, and a dead thing walks through it.

  The road winds through a hollow where a stream once flowed.

  Dry stones mark its path, smooth from water long vanished. A wooden bridge spans the gap, its planks warped and splintered.

  My armored feet test each board before committing weight.

  The wood groans but holds.

  Moss grows in patches of green and black across fallen logs and stone. The moss recoils as shadows of these bones fall across it.

  Even corruption recognizes something unnatural in my passing.

  The bridge creaks a final protest as I step onto the far bank. Ahead, the road disappears into a tangle of fallen trees, massive oaks and elms toppled time and storm.

  No path remains. The trees lie stacked like discarded bones, a barrier of wood and roots that spans the roadway completely. Just tree limbs and hollowed trunks.

  I study the obstacle. No way around. The dead forest is just as thick with fallen logs and brambles.

  Through, then.

  I approach the nearest overturned trunk. Fingers of bone dig into decaying wood as I pull myself up and over. The bark sloughs away beneath my grip, revealing pale sapwood beneath, dead for years, yet still holding form.

  The first trunk gives way to a second, angled sharply upward. I crawl along its length, shield scraping against rough wood. The tree's hollow core collapses beneath one foot, momentarily trapping bone.

  I twist, pull free, continue.

  Deeper into the deadfall.

  A thousand insects should crawl here, beetles, worms, termites converting death to soil. Their absence speaks volumes.

  The bark crumbles at my touch, revealing tunnels carved by absent worms.

  At the center of the barrier, the trees form an accidental chamber.

  Something gleams amid the tangle.

  Metal.

  I approach, shield raised against unseen threats. A broken wagon wheel, its iron rim bent but intact. Beside it lies an axle, snapped clean.

  Wood splinters trail toward what remains of the wagon bed, just broken planks now, rotted clearly.

  No corpses. No bones. Whatever fate befell the travelers, their remains aren't here.

  I continue forward, squeezing through narrowing gaps. The deadfall thins, finally opening onto the road again.

  The King's Road stretches ahead, straighter here. Ancient paving stones still hold their pattern, though weeds thrust between the cracks. The dead forest stands back from the roadside, as if something about the stonework repels it.

  I march onward.

  These borrowed legs don't tire. Only purpose drives them forward, step after relentless step.

  The road continues up a rise.

  From vantage point, I can see farther across the blighted landscape. Hills roll to the east, their slopes stripped of healthy growth. To the west, the land flattens toward distant mists and marshes.

  Something moves in that mist. Something large.

  I turn away. My path leads elsewhere.

  The road descends into a shallow valley. Here, the stones have buckled, forced upward by something beneath. I step carefully across the broken surface.

  A milestone emerges tall in dead grass.

  Characters carved into its face have worn smooth, but fingers of bone trace their shape. Three leagues to Candlekeep. The distance means nothing to a form that needs no rest, yet something in these fragments remembers the weight of tired feet on ancient roads.

  My bones know this road, though no single memory claims it.

  Fragments surface, the memory of wine but not the memory of taste, the weight of scrolls in saddlebags.

  Horse hooves on ancient cobbles. These borrowed bones walked this path before. Many times. Many lives. Merchants bringing paper and ink.

  Knights escorting scholars. Pilgrims seeking wisdom.

  The strong who once guarded the weak.

  The strong who fed on the weak.

  A cycle. All wrong. The life that was before.

  Deeper knowledge stirs in these fragments. These bones remember more than Haven forgot existed.

  Now I must reach those memories before they fade again.

  A mist and fog drift across and down.

  The road curves between dead hills. Mist clings to hollows, refusing to burn away to day though time must be passing.

  These bones feel the drift of hours but mark no difference between dark and darker.

  Something moves in the fog. Bones and shield echo warning. My sword rises without sound.

  Not a threat. A memory imprinted on the earth, something bound.

  The mist shapes itself into ghost-forms of travelers long dead. Their edges blur and fade, leaving only impression of motion. They walk this road as they did in life, passing through these bones like water through sand.

  They don't not know me.

  The road continues its winding path. Dead trees thin, giving way to open ground. Broken walls emerge from darkness, boundary markers for monastery lands. The stones bear traces of protective wards, their power long faded.

  First light touches the horizon. Gray bleeds into grayer. The shield pulses warning again, stronger now.

  The ground shifts beneath these bones.

  Not the subtle movement of settling earth, but something more.

  Something vast.

  Ancient stones rattle against each other.

  Dust rises from cracks appearing in the road's surface.

  I halt, sword drawn, shield ready.

  Waves of soil ripple outward from a central point ahead. Some bones more than others recognizing danger beyond mere threat.

  The ground splits open.

  Earth fountains skyward as something massive forces its way to the surface. Bones emerge first, a claw larger than a man, yellowed with age but bound by magic that glows sickly green between joints. The claw plants itself on broken ground, followed by another, both attached to limbs thicker than trees on roadside.

  A skull follows next.

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  Not the skull of any natural beast, but something that combines aspects of dragon and serpent, stretched and twisted by magic beyond recognition.

  Its eye sockets pulse with the same corrupt green light that binds its form together.

  The wyrm rises, shedding earth from bone plates that overlap like armor. Each plate bears markings, not natural growth patterns, but carved script by some absent other.

  Demonic runes pulse with power, holding this impossible collection of bones together.

  Vertebrae large as wagon wheels form a spine that stretches beyond sight as more of the creature emerges. Ribs arch outward like the timbers that frame ships. Wings unfold, not of flesh and scale but constructed from thousands fused smaller bones.

  The earth groans.

  The wyrm towers above these borrowed bones, a thing of ancient remains animated by corrupt purpose.

  It has no flesh to rot, no organs to fail, no blood to spill. Like me, it exists beyond death, but where these fragments serve purpose, the wyrm is mindless destruction.

  Its skull turns, tracking my movements. The jaw hinges open, revealing more teeth inside teeth, rows of serrated bone leading to a gullet that glows with the same green energy binding its form.

  The sword in hand feels small against such mass, yet these fragments know their purpose. The shield settles against my arm, ready to meet the impossible. Some echoes in these borrowed bones recognize the runes etched into the wyrm's frame.

  Dark magic, older than Haven's walls. Binding spells meant to create a weapon that never tires, never heals, never dies.

  The enormous skull descends, jaws wide to engulf these fragments in a single bite. My shield rises to meet it. The impact sends cracks through bones, driving these feet backward. Teeth scrape against the shield's face, seeking purchase but on Haven steel finds none.

  The sword strikes upward, finding space between massive teeth that come. The blade sparks against bone, steel meeting ancient remains. The impact travels through my arm, splintering joints not meant to absorb such force.

  These bones need no intact frame to continue their purpose.

  The wyrm's head whips sideways, flinging these fragments across the broken road. I land in pieces, arm separating at the elbow, ribs scattering, thrown.

  The skull bounces once, twice, coming to rest against a toppled milestone.

  Through empty sockets, I watch the creature rear back, its full height blocking, darkening sky. Its spine unwinds, segments grinding against each other as it repositions.

  The tail emerges last, bone plates forming a massive club studded with spikes.

  Scattered bones remember their purpose.

  The hand still grips the sword, even separated from arm and body. Fingers flex, driving the blade into earth, using it as anchor to pull other fragments closer.

  Ribs roll across broken ground. Leg bones drag themselves through dust toward the core.

  The shield remains strapped to a partial arm, its weight slowing the return of those fragments.

  The wyrm's tail sweeps across the road, scattering reassembling pieces.

  These bones have been broken before.

  They know how to return.

  The skull watches as the massive creature circles what remains of this form. Green light pulses between its joints as it studies the moving fragments. It strikes again, massive jaw descending on the sword arm still separated from the rest.

  Steel meets bone with a sound like splitting stone. Sword is for purpose beyond just combat. The blade's edge finds gaps between the carved runes on the wyrm's teeth. Light flares where they connect, not the sickly green binding the creature, but clean white radiance that momentarily blinds even these empty sockets.

  The wyrm recoils, jaw hinging wider in what might be pain if the thing could feel. The sword arm presses advantage, driving sword deeper into the gap. Runes along the blade activate, responding to corrupt magic in counterpoint of light to dark.

  While the creature focuses on the sword, other fragments reassemble.

  Spine connects to pelvis. Ribs form their protective cage. The shield arm drags itself back toward the core, Haven's mark centered with each inch gained.

  The wyrm's attention shifts back to the reforming skeleton. Its tail sweeps low again, but this time the shield meets it. The impact shatters recently reattached joints, sending fragments spinning through mist.

  The shield itself cracks but does not break, Haven's mark remains..

  The sword arm, still separated, climbs the wyrm's skull while its attention fixes on the shield. Finger bones find purchase in eye sockets. The sword drives downward, steel sinking into the green energy pooling there.

  The creature thrashes, its entire frame convulsing as the sword disrupts the magic binding it. Bones grind against each other, plates shifting and separating as the spell pattern falters.

  Its jaw hinges open fully, nearly splitting its skull in two.

  Energy builds in that monstrous maw, not natural dragonfire, but concentrated corruption prepared to consume everything in its path. The sword arm twists, driving deeper into the eye socket.

  Light blazes.

  The blast erupts, not forward as intended, but outward in all directions. Green fire consumes the ground around the wyrm, turning stone to slag and dirt to glass.

  The sword arm disappears.

  Remaining fragments brace against the onslaught. The shield, though cracked, turns the worst.

  Borrowed bones blacken but hold.

  When the blast fades, the wyrm still stands, though segments of its frame have shifted, bonds weakened by the attack by the sword.

  My separated skull watches from behind a milestone.

  The distance provides perspective on the creature's true scale. It towers over the road, a mountain of bone and corrupt magic that seem impossible to defeat with these limited fragments.

  Yet purpose knows no impossibility.

  The sword arm moves, cracks, and emerges from the glass-smooth crater surrounding the wyrm. Blackened but intact, fingers still gripping sword.

  The blade glows white-hot but still whole.

  My scattered pieces converge again, drawn together by compulsion deeper than the magic animating this frame.

  The shield arm reaches the core first, followed by leg bones and spine fragments. Ribs gather, forming partial protection around the center.

  Not complete, not fully functional, but enough to continue.

  The wyrm gathers itself to strike.

  Its skull, one eye socket now dark where Sword disrupted the magic, fixes on these reassembling bones. The jaw hinges open again, energy building more carefully.

  These fragments rise, incomplete but resolute. The shield, cracked but steady, braces before the core. What remains of legs plants firmly on glass-smooth ground. The sword arm, separated but aligned in purpose, positions itself for another strike.

  The wyrm lunges, its entire mass driving forward with purpose singular as my own.

  I dive beneath its skull, shield raised to scrape against bone-plate underbelly. Sword, still clutched in a hand not attached to body, swings upward to meet the underside.

  Steel finds the seam where bone plates connect.

  The blade slides between, seeking the corrupt magic binding the segment where ancient metal touches ancient bone, light flares, not just opposing the wyrm's magic but unraveling it.

  The creature recoils, its parts thrashing in patterns that suggest alarm, perhaps even fear if such a thing could experience emotion.

  It writhes, segments grinding against each other as the sword disrupts connections between them.

  My scattered fragments press the advantage. The sword arm drives the blade deeper, prying apart bone plates to expose the corrupt heart of the binding spell. The shield arm braces against massive ribs, using leverage to widen the growing gap.

  The skull directs from a distance, watching for opportunities amid the wyrm's thrashing.

  The creature's tail whips around, catching these bones in mid-assault. The impact shatters what little cohesion had been restored.

  Fragments scatter again, flung across glassed dirt and broken stone. The sword arm alone maintains its position, buried deep in the wyrm's underside.

  From within, the sword continues its work.

  The blade pulses with increasing frequency, white light spreading.

  The massive creature thrashes with greater violence, segments of its spine separating as the binding spell unravels. Bone plates larger than Haven's shield fall to the earth. The skull itself twists unnaturally, as if trying to bite at the unraveling the sword has introduced to its magic.

  My scattered fragments, skull and all, pull together again, purpose undiminished by repeated destruction.

  The worn road becomes a battlefield of bone against bone, ancient remains driven by opposed magics. My sword arm, still buried within the creature's frame, drives toward what must be the core of the binding spell.

  The wyrm coils tightly around itself, bone grinding against bone. Its remaining eye socket flares, desperate.

  The wings, constructed from countless smaller remains, beat against the earth, raising clouds of dust and glass fragments. The tail, now partially separated from the spine, smashes against the ground and fissures what remains of the road.

  These borrowed bones reach the creature's skull again. Collected fragments climb. The goal becomes clear, not to destroy the massive construct piece by piece, but to strike at the source.

  The wyrm senses the approach. Its head whips around, jaws wide to engulf these climbing fragments.

  Each fragment knows its purpose, even separated from the whole.

  While the jaws close on the shield, my skull reaches the base of the wyrm's own. Here, the runes pulse strongest, the binding pattern's anchor point where corrupt magic first took hold. These empty sockets recognize the spell structure now, enslavement not animation. This creature was bound to single purpose, a thing to haunt and the King's Road.

  The sword arm, still buried within the creature's frame, changes direction. Sword cuts upward, seeking connection with the primary binding point.

  The blade advances through obstacles of bone and magic, ancient steel remembering wars fought before Haven's walls were raised.

  The wyrm's entire frame convulses as sword nears its goal.

  My skull presses bony fingers against the primary binding rune. The magic burns against these fragments, recognition deeper than physical form identifying the difference between enslaved bone and chosen bone.

  Sword breaks through final barriers, the blade's tip emerging beside my skull at binding point. Steel meets primary rune, ancient magic recognizing ancient magic. Light explodes outward, not green corruption or white radiance, but the blending of both into something of both.

  The wyrm freezes, its entire frame suddenly rigid. The binding spell, disrupted at its source, starts failure throughout the bone construct. Green energy shifts, pulses, then starts to fade.

  The runes carved into bone begin to crack, ancient symbols breaking apart as the magic sustaining them fails.

  My skull watches as the massive creature's animation unravels. Its remaining eye socket flickers. The jaw, still clamped around shield fragments, loses cohesion. Teeth designed to shear through stone now barely maintain connection to the greater whole.

  Sword pulses once more, a final surge that shatters the primary binding rune completely.

  The wyrm's skeleton segments disconnecting as the magic between them fades.

  The skull falls first.

  Vertebrae follow, massive bone plates sliding apart without the spell binding them together.

  I fall with it, these fragments landing among remains that dwarf them in scale. The sword arm, still gripping Sword, cuts through residual magic still clinging to larger bones. The shield arm drags itself clear of massive teeth now harmless without animation to drive them.

  When the collapse finishes, the road and surrounding fields lie buried under a mountain of ancient bone. The wyrm's remains cover areas large enough to encompass village squares.

  Its skull alone could serve as shelter for dozens. The magic has faded completely, leaving behind only naturally preserved bone, yellowed with extreme age but otherwise untainted.

  My scattered fragments pull together once more, drawn not just to each other but to the purified remains surrounding them. Where demon-script burned away, these bones recognize something familiar in the wyrm's remnants.

  I rise from the mountain of bone, new strength coursing through what remains of my form. Ancient dragon remnants, once enslaved for destruction, now integrate with my purpose.

  Armor-like plates slide into place along my spine. Ridges form where vulnerable joints once separated too easily.

  The massive skull that tried to devour me now contributes fragments that reinforce my own.

  What was corrupted now serves freely.

  My fingers flex, testing joints strengthened by wyrm essence. The movement feels natural, as if these pieces were meant to join this collection all along. The sword's weight balances differently in my grasp, counterpointed by newfound density in arm and shoulder bones.

  Something in these fragments recognizes the wyrm's enslavement. Its bones were bound by demon script, forced to endless purpose without choice. These bones know similar compulsion, protection, purpse, not destruction, but compulsion nonetheless.

  The difference lies not in freedom but in alignment. My purpose protects what remains. The wyrm's purpose served only destruction.

  Yet in this moment of joining, something shifts. The wyrm's bones, freed from corrupt bindings, choose to serve rather than being forced.

  Choice emerges from the spaces between borrowed memories.

  I have changed. Grown.

  The scattered remains of the great beast cover the King's Road, creating a barrier of tall and wide bones. Yet purpose requires no clear path.

  These borrowed fragments will find another way.

  I turn toward the path, where Candlekeep Monastery awaits with its ancient knowledge. The morning sun catches on new ivory protrusions along shoulders and spine, casting shadows different from those that fell yesterday.

  The shield settles against my back, fitting naturally against ridges that weren't there before.

  Its weight distributes evenly across a frame now better structured to bear burdens.

  Haven's mark remains visible on dented shield.

  The sword rets in a hand now rippled with bone plates that once served corrupt magic.

  I take the first step away from the battlefield, testing the balance of this reinforced form. Where shadow hounds and corrupted knights once sent these bones scattering, they would now find sturdier resistance.

  The path to knowledge lies ahead, and these borrowed bones, now joined by dragon fragments, continue their journey forward.