elene’s heart doesn’t seem to care. It’s still trying to claw its way out of her ribcage and bolt for the hills. Possibly screaming. Possibly dragging her dignity with it.
Too many explosions. Too much arcane bullshit flying through the air like some mad wizard’s fireworks festival. She can still taste the ozone—sharp and dry, like biting down on lightning—and there’s a pressure behind her eyes, the kind that comes from too much mana used too fast.
Dust curls through the air in lazy spirals, curling off the edges of shattered stones and cracked sigils. Where spells had torn the ground open, the earth still sizzles faintly, wisps of dissipating energy dragging on like reluctant ghosts. The echoes—steel on steel, the snap of sorcery, screams folded into the roar of collapse—linger just long enough to feel real.
Then nothing. Silence. Heavy and solid. Like the world’s holding its breath.
Selene exhales. Slow. Measured. Her limbs unknot one breath at a time, but the buzz beneath her skin doesn’t go away. Not fear. Not exactly. Just... a kind of restless alertness. A mental itch.
The shimmer cloaking her form gutters out, the camouflage charm losing cohesion with a sigh of warm air. The cloak settles back around her shoulders like a weight she hadn’t noticed she was carrying.
She steps forward. Boots crunch on broken stone—one more sound in a space that’s supposed to be done making noise.
The stranger lies at the center of it all, splayed out like a broken marionette, surrounded by the crater of his own arrival. His weapon lies beside him: not quite a gun, not quite a staff. Sleek, metallic, engraved with precise, curling glyphs she doesn’t recognize. It hums faintly. Not active. But not dead either.
And him?
She narrows her eyes. Breath held. Magic crawling at the edge of her awareness, tasting for traps, pulses, signs of life.
Dead?
Unconscious?
No—
Something’s off.
The quiet isn’t real.
Tibbins bolts past Selene before she can say a word.
“Wait—Tibbins—!” Too late. He’s already skidding to his knees in front of the fallen weapon like a kid spotting the last toy on the shelf during Wintermark clearance.
His fingers hover inches from the handle. Just hover. Not touching. Yet. His brow scrunches like he’s doing math he definitely didn’t finish learning.
Okay, okay. Could be trapped. Could be cursed. Could be... cursed and trapped? Ooh, fun combo. Or maybe it’s just sleeping. Is that a thing? Can weapons sleep?
A beat.
Curiosity wins. Of course it does.
He grabs it.
CLICK.
“…Oh.”
The hum starts low. Builds fast. His ears pop. The glyphs flare—blue, then violet, then red—never good when it jumps straight to red!
BANG!
The blast launches him backward like a ragdoll shot from a cannon. Limbs flail. Screaming. Dust. Impact. More screaming. He bounces once, twice, skids face-first across a slab of scorched marble, and somehow ends up flat on his back, blinking up at what might be a chunk of ceiling or maybe an angry sky god.
Gorik’s voice follows close behind. Gruff. Disappointed. Full dad-energy. “Damn it, Tibbins!”
Tibbins coughs. Once. Twice. Then grins. Wide. Dust-coated teeth and all.
He props himself up with a wheeze, brushes debris off his vest with exaggerated dignity, and staggers back toward the weapon like he’s not seconds away from becoming gnome-flavored jelly.
“This ain’t just a weapon,” he mutters, running reverent fingers along the still-glowing glyphs. His voice trembles somewhere between awe and breathlessness. “This is... this is somethin’ else. Some kinda hybrid Ether-tech-magi-tech interface matrix—or—or maybe an echo-forged combustion lattice? No, no, wait—hold on—I got it—”
He doesn’t have it. But that never stopped him before.
Gorik knelt beside the fallen man, pressing two fingers to his neck. Cold.?
Selene stood a few steps away, her heart pounding. “Is he...?”?
Gorik nodded solemnly. A slight easing in her chest caught her off guard.?
Why do I feel relieved? The thought struck her with a pang of guilt. A man had just died. They had killed him.?
Why??
He hadn't been overtly hostile. No threats, no demands. Was this a tragic misunderstanding? Or another cruel twist in the gods' endless games??
A groan from behind shattered the silence.?
Nia, the wolf-kin, slumped against a crumbled pillar, teeth clenched. Blood soaked her tunic and fur where the blast had torn through her side. Elara was already at her side, weaving glowing strands of light over the wound.?
Elara cursed in Elvish. Even in anger, her words sounded like poetry.?
“Selene!” she called out. “Quick, I need you!”?
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Selene rushed over, crouching beside Nia.?
“What’s wrong?”?
Elara's eyes met hers, a mix of confusion and concern. The magic affecting the wound was unfamiliar.?
“Help me,” Elara urged.?
Selene summoned her magic. Threads of moonlight coiled at her fingertips. Elara's healing was precise, a solo melody; Selene's was layered, a harmonious blend. Together, they worked to mend the torn flesh and fractured ribs.?
Selene felt resistance—a pull, like opposing magnets. Even combined, their magic struggled to close the wound.?
“You're lucky,” Elara murmured. “The blast shattered your ribs. Another inch, and it would've pierced your lung.”?
Nia let out a weak laugh, wincing. “Lucky isn't the word I'd use.”?
Selene's voice was quiet. “I believe it is.”?
Silence fell.?
Elara and Nia exchanged puzzled glances.?
“What?” Nia asked.?
Selene pointed to the obliterated stone sentinels across the battlefield. “That man shattered Fused Obsidian-Moonstone.”?
Elara's breath caught. “Are you saying...?”?
“Yes,” Selene confirmed. “He could've wiped us out easily.” She gestured toward Roaka. “She took multiple blasts and survived. You nearly died from one.”?
A heavy pause settled over them.?
Elara and Nia exchanged a look, tension evident. The implication was clear.?
The man had been cautious, perhaps even restrained.
A low pulse hums through the chamber—deep, steady, and wrong.
Selene freezes.
The air’s changed. Not with magic. Not exactly. Something quieter. Angrier. Sad.
Stone grinds against stone with a guttural groan, like a god with a sore throat waking up after a century-long nap.
Symbols spark across the wall—jagged lines and curling script flare to life, one after another, in a pattern too deliberate to be random.
Like a heartbeat.
Or a countdown.
Or maybe both.
And then—just as quickly—they vanish, swallowed whole by the stone again.
Selene inches forward. One step, then another, her boots whispering against dust-slick tile. Her eyes stay locked on the throne—massive, cracked, carved from the same veined obsidian that lined the chamber. Something about it pulls at her.
She doesn’t fight it.
She rests her palm on the cold stone. It bites at her skin, sharp and sudden. But beneath the chill, there’s... something. A weight. A presence that isn’t alive but doesn’t feel dead, either.
Not a spell.
Not a curse.
Grief.
It slithers beneath the surface like oil under water. Thick. Mournful. Ancient.
Her breath catches.
Fully healed on her feat. Roaka cracked her knuckles, standing over the corpse like a butcher inspecting her own handiwork. Her eyes gleamed—not with victory. Something sharper. Hungrier.
“What a shame,” she drawled, rolling her shoulder with a lazy shrug. “Would’ve liked playin’ with him a bit longer.”
Selene’s eyes flicked to Ula, then Rin. Subtle. A shift in weight. A tensing of muscle.
Their stances weren’t just casual discomfort. No—something had gone off-script.
A glance passed between them, short and brittle.
Doubt. Regret. Fear.
Selene tilted her head, voice low and flat. “What’s wrong?”
The hobgoblin, Ula, folded her tighter. “So... why’d he attack you?”
Selene blinked. “He… didn’t.”
She turned to Roaka. “You.. you attacked him.”
Roaka didn’t even flinch. “Damn right I did.” Her grin spread like an oil slick.
Elara reached over and smacked her shoulder. “Why?”
Roaka shrugged. “I... dunno. Why did she?” Roaka pointed at the wolf-kin.
Nia winced, testing her bruised side with a hiss. “I dunno either. I saw Roaka passed out. Then, Rin stabbed him. So… figured we were already committed?”
Silence.
All eyes pivoted to Rin.
The tiger-kin froze. Ears twitching. “What? I thought you three were already dead!” She stated pointing at Tibbins, Gorik, and Selene.
Roaka snorted. “I did too!”
Selene’s fingers twitched at her side. She narrowed her eyes, scanning their faces—not for guilt, but for pattern. The kind of pattern that doesn’t come from logic, but from instinct gone haywire.
Panic? Mistrust?
No. Something else.
Something deeper.
Something that reached through them before they could think.
“So just to recap,” Selene said, tone sharp enough to cut stone, “we murdered a man... because we assumed he was... what? Uncommon? Misplaced?”
“Technically,” Gorik muttered without looking up from his notes, “he didn’t speak a word of Common.”
Tibbins grunted as he dragged a gear-forged monstrosity behind him, its joints screeching like dying birds. “Yeah, see, that’s the problem. Mankind’s been extinct for… what, a couple thousand years? And their language was Common. So how’d that guy not know a word of it?”
Roaka slammed her fist into her palm. “Right. He spoke monster.”
“And beast-tongue,” Rin added, eyes narrowing. Her tail lashed once, sharply.
Elara exhaled, arms crossing. “Well, Captain, what now?” she asked Rin, dry as parchment.
Rin pointed a thumb at Gorik. “Wasn’t my call.”
Gorik sighed like he’d aged five years since they entered the ruins. “We show up to the Council empty-handed, they’ll strip our licenses. Hell, they’ll toss us into the breach for wasting their time.”
“Actually…” Tibbins said, now brandishing a short sword that looked more like a claymore in his tiny hands, “we might’ve stumbled across a couple artifacts. Maybe more.”
But Selene wasn’t listening.
Her eyes had drifted back to the throne.
It sat like a grave marker, slouched under centuries of dust and silence. Yet something about it watched her. Not with sight. With… memory.
That subtle pressure again—arcane, residual, clinging to the air like breath before a storm.
She stepped closer. The others fell away into static.
She reached out—slow, deliberate.
Touch.
Light didn’t flash in the chamber. It flared behind her eyes.
A pressure pierced her skull. A whisper—not sound, but sensation.
Low. Guttural.
“I see you…”