They emerge from the spaces between broken pillars, from the gaps beneath collapsed arches.

  Not as an ambush, not as a sudden rush.

  Simply a slow, inevitable presence that advances.

  No sound of footfalls. No rasp of breath.

  Only that scraping stone sound.

  Their forms defy easy description.

  Taller than any man, yet gaunt to the point of emaciation.

  Limbs too long, jointed in ways that defy understanding of form.

  They move without the stiffness of undeath, these are something else entirely.

  Heads elongated, skulls stretching back.

  Faces dominated by those pale, blank orbs.

  No pupils, no irises, just flat white surfaces that somehow see.

  They have no mouths.

  The scraping sound intensifies.

  It takes me a moment to realize its source.

  Their hands.

  Fingers tipped not with claws, but with sharpened edges of bone.

  They drag those edges along the stone as they move, carving shallow grooves in the ancient rock.

  A deliberate act, not an accidental scuff.

  More emerge.

  Five. Ten. A dozen.

  More than that, then some more.

  Again their numbers yet.

  Their numbers are hard to gauge in the gloom.

  They surround me, but do not press me, not yet.

  They simply occupy the space.

  I adjust my grip on Aeternus.

  My other hand tightens on the edges of my bone-rib cage, securing Carida’s remains.

  The closest figure stops.

  Its head tilts in an unsettlingly smooth motion, blank orbs fixed on me.

  Then, a sound.

  Not a voice, not a growl.

  A vibration that seems to emanate from the stone itself, yet somehow directed through that creature’s form.

  A resonance that bypasses hearing, striking directly at bone.

  A question.

  Not in words, not in any language I recognize.

  But an undeniable interrogation.

  Not who are you.

  Simply who.

  A demand for identity, for definition.

  I do not answer; these questions are not for me.

  I shift my weight, preparing to move.

  The vibration changes.

  A subtle shift in tone, a ripple passing through the other creatures.

  They turn, blank orbs honing in on me.

  Another pulse, stronger this time.

  Again, no words.

  Now the demand is a thing of purpose, of reason.

  Their hands stop scraping stone.

  The silence that follows feels heavier, more oppressive.

  They wait.

  Then, from the depths, something shifts.

  Not stone scraping.

  Not flesh moving.

  A folding.

  A writhing.

  Something vast unfurls in the dark, a shape without form that does not belong in any waking world.

  Memories of a battle lost before history.

  A people devoured and forgotten.

  The first king of dwarves, screaming into the pit as darkness claimed him.

  My bones recognize these echoes, not from life or battle, but from something older.

  This is not mere death.

  This is a graveyard of meaning, where the weight of all things lost sinks into void.

  The thing below stirs.

  A shape that cannot be.

  It stretches outward, rippling between flesh and stone and something in between.

  Too many limbs shift in and out of existence.

  A mass of faces, half-formed and merging, bearing silent screams in unmoving mouths.

  It moves like an idea that never should have been thought.

  A Gravemind.

  A corpseflayer.

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  A collector of the dead.

  It looms, an abomination that defies natural law as surely as these bones did in the fields where the Demon Duke scorched flesh.

  They are part of it, these silent watchers.

  Or maybe they are its sum total.

  The distinction means nothing.

  One of the tall figures raises a long-fingered hand, bone scraping against stone.

  That single gesture stops time.

  The vibration, the question, ceases.

  Now there is only the presence of the greater thing, blotting out all else.

  It does not attack, not yet.

  It simply waits, its existence a crushing weight on the air that is not air.

  I sense it, but I have no eyes to process the un-sight.

  My grip tightens on Aeternus.

  The blade hums, but everything else is silent.

  Ancient power surrounds me, a place with no room for living things, though I am apart from even that.

  The mass shifts again, a slow ripple of impossible flesh and unformed bone.

  Shapes emerge and vanish, swallowed back into the whole.

  A hand, larger than any giant’s.

  A wing, feathered with something that is not plumage.

  A jaw lined with teeth that never existed in this world.

  The faces return.

  Hundreds.

  Thousands.

  Pressed together, their flesh fused.

  Eyes roll, sightless yet searching.

  Mouths gape, toothless yet hungry.

  This is not a creature.

  This is an event.

  A culmination of all things that should not be.

  I feel no fear as the living understand it.

  Only the weight in my rib cage where my heart was not.

  The cold purpose that drives me on.

  The thing extends a limb.

  Not an arm, not a tentacle, something in between.

  It reaches toward the tall, silent watchers and their pale orbs.

  One of them glides forward, moving between me and the shifting mass.

  No sound accompanies its passage.

  Its blank eyes remain fixed on me, unblinking.

  Then the vibration returns, stronger now, focused.

  A thread of meaning weaves through the resonance.

  They are the Us.

  Not words.

  An approximation.

  A concept forced into a shape.

  We are the Them.

  The thing pulses.

  The faces within it writhe with silent screams of lost things.

  This is the All.

  If there is a meaning, I cannot grasp it.

  It is not like these borrowed and chosen bones I carry.

  The All is not a creature.

  It is a convergence.

  A final place where definitions fray and boundaries dissolve.

  I recall the Field of Broken Banners, a place of purpose and echoes and last stands.

  This thing is older, though not necessarily greater.

  It is lesser.

  The tall figures, the Us, are not guardians.

  They are fragments.

  Shards of what once was, stripped to their essence.

  Witnesses, recorders.

  Empty vessels through which the All extends its awareness.

  They have no will of their own, not as the living would define it.

  They are extensions of something else.

  Like antennae. Sensory organs.

  The vibration shifts again, a subtle alteration carrying an echo.

  You are the…?

  The question hangs unfinished, a probe searching for purchase.

  It seeks definition, understanding.

  It is not a threat, not yet.

  More of the tall figures glide closer.

  They do not surround me or block me, merely arrange themselves, pale orbs unwavering.

  They seek a category, a label.

  They want a way to slot me.

  They shift aside in one fluid movement, parting like a living curtain.

  One figure in battered dwarven exoskeleton steps forward.

  Its beard is nothing but brittle strands, helmet fused with the skull beneath.

  The visor lifts on its own, revealing vacant sockets where eyes should be.

  When it speaks, many voices echo inside its throat.

  Layers of sound, mismatched in pitch and timbre, dwarven tongues warped by time and death.

  “We…are…Arkashoth.”

  Each syllable leaves the husk trembling.

  The dead dwarf’s armor screeches at the hinges, an obscene puppet moving on its own.

  The rest remain motionless, bone-fingers scraping shallow lines into stone.

  Only that distant pulsing from below, that steady hum from the massive presence, breaks the silence.

  Arkashoth.

  It resonates in my skull, the name.

  A sum of everything lurking in these depths.

  It belongs to all of them, a single will in a thousand bodies—the ancient watchers, the living city that is no city.

  “You are welcome here,” says the dwarven husk.

  The chorus of voices collides in the gloom.

  “You are beyond the living, as we are beyond the dying.”

  I hold my stance.

  My bones stir but beneath my own echoes star quiet, dragon bones and wolve fragments have nothing to offer.

  No insight.

  They do not threaten me, yet.

  Arkashoth lifts a skeletal gauntlet, pointing toward me in silent invitation.

  “This place,” the puppet says, “Our city beneath the stones. We wait, and we shape what dwarves could not see beyond their mortal eyes.”

  It lurches closer, the voices merging into a rasp.

  “They attacked. We absorbed. Their knowledge is ours, though we cannot wear it as they did. We are other. With them we war.”

  I study that skeletal dwarf for any trick or trap.

  My senses find only the void behind its sockets.

  No trace of mortal life remains.

  Arkashoth’s eyes, its real eyes, are those countless pale orbs, watching from every corner of these ruins.

  “You came with dwarves,” the husk says. “They cling to old ways, forging weapons and walls. They hate us, they do not understand what we are. We war.”

  The puppet extends a rusted gauntlet. “We offer our hand instead of our teeth. We can help you in ways they never will. And you can remain, yourself. Apart.”

  Its words dig at something in me, an echo of my own borrowed existence.

  I am not living.

  I am not truly dead either.

  I am a vessel of many.

  Just as they are.

  But they are not a servant of purpose.

  More husks shuffle forward, each wearing scraps of dwarven plate.

  Some lack limbs but still move.

  Together, they speak, “You are free here. You do not rot. You do not hunger. You are not dwarven, nor are you bound.”

  I sense the deeper presence behind their words.

  Arkashoth, the Gravemind, extends an invitation. Beneath the world above, it built this ‘kingdom’ from echoes of what it consumed.

  “We welcome you,” they repeat.

  My grip tightens on Aeternus.

  The hilt hums as though it senses the choice before me.

  Those watchers stand silent, blank eyes shining.

  No aggression.

  Only emptiness, waiting to absorb me if I reject them. Maybe absorb me regardless.

  Arkashoth’s puppet lowers its hand, meeting my gaze, or trying to, with those hollow sockets.

  “Ally with us. Walk among these halls as a friend, not foe. We have knowledge. Powers. Secrets the dwarves forgot long ago.”

  A moment stretches between us, thick with possibility.

  The dwarven husks speak again, voices overlapping in the cavern, “They fear you."

  There is a choice.

  Their is truth in their words.

  The dwarves do fear me. Even Eimhar, saved by my bone, trembled at my touch.

  But fear is not purpose.

  My bones shift, settling into place.

  The dragon fragments stir, recognizing something primordial in this Arkashoth. The wolf bones yearn to join the hunt. Yet Carida's remains stay quiet in my rib cage, anchoring me to what I am.

  "No."

  The word emerges as grave-song, echoing off ancient stone.

  The dwarven husks tilt their heads in unison. "You refuse?"

  "I serve Haven."

  The husks shift, armor creaking. "Haven is small. Temporary. We offer eternity."

  I do not respond immediately. The weight of Carida's remains presses against my ribs.

  "You protect them," the voices merge and separate. "We understand duty. Service. Purpose. But why chain yourself to their fragile walls?"

  The massive presence pulses behind them.

  Shapes writhe and reform in its bulk.

  "Keep your duty," they say. "Guard your Haven. But take our knowledge. Our power. We can show you secrets of bone and death that the living forgot."

  The scraping sounds resume as the tall watchers drag their fingers across stone.

  "The dwarves seal themselves away. They rot in their halls of steam and iron. We offer you more. Ancient magics. Ways to reshape death itself."

  A different husk steps forward, this one wearing the remnants of ornate armor. "Think. How better to protect Haven than with our strength? Our knowledge?"

  The offer hangs in the stale air. Not absorption. Not unity. Simply,. power.

  I remain silent, watching. Waiting.

  They press on, voices overlapping. "You need not join us. Need not become us. Simply, learn. Take what we freely offer. Use it as you will."

  My sword arm stays ready, but I do not strike. Not yet.

  The massive thing ripples, faces churning within its bulk.

  Patient. Waiting for my choice.

  The dwarven husks part, revealing streets between impossible towers that fill up the void cave.

  "Walk our paths," they say in overlapping voices. "See what we offer. Knowledge is yours to claim. Power to protect Haven. All we ask is aid against those who deny us."

  I consider their words.

  The weight of Haven's walls presses on my thoughts. How many times have those defenses nearly fallen? How often have corrupted beasts tested their limits?

  These beings offer strength. Power. Ancient secrets that could fortify Haven's chances.

  The massive presence pulses behind its puppets, patient. Waiting.

  I think of Commander Ikert's tired eyes.

  Of children huddled in cellars while monsters prowl.

  Of farmers who dare not venture far to plant crops.

  Haven needs every advantage.

  Even monstrous ones.

  The dwarven husks gesture again. "Choose freely. Take what serves your purpose. We ask only that you remember who aided you when the dwarves sealed their gates."

  My bones shift, considering. Dragon fragments recognize the ancient power here. Wolf bones sense prey worth hunting.

  Yet Carida's remains stay quiet, anchored to simpler truths. While Soldier fragments and largest fragment scream and rage.

  I could walk these streets. Learn their secrets. Take what Haven needs.

  The tall watchers stand aside, bone-fingers still carving shallow grooves in stone.

  Their blank eyes reflect no judgment, only endless patience.

  "What do you save?" the voices ask.