The questing tentacles of Lucretia’s curse lashed out blindly where I had been standing only moments ago, but I was already gone. I floated in the middle of the mountain cavern outside the bunker, everything for miles illuminated by the floating ball of fire conjured by Sena. Far off into the distance, hanging above the edge of the bunker, I could see the cable that had snapped and caused the entire structure to tilt. The frayed edge of it swung slowly in midair, while the connection point looked to have shattered completely.

  My attention was immediately caught, though, when I heard another shattering, twanging sound coming from my right. I followed it just in time to watch as another one of the suspension cables that trailed off miles above me snapped. The bunker shuddered and slumped further as I heard the same robotic voice echo out of the exit I had just flown from, now at an angle below me.

  “T-MINUS SEVEN MINUTES UNTIL DETACHMENT.”

  I snapped out of it and shook my head. We were still in danger, as far as I was concerned. I wheeled about in midair and flapped my way over towards the ledge where the rest of my companions stood waiting for me. In moments, I had touched down onto the stone path that looked to have been melted into place millennia ago. As I did so, I found a sight that both relieved and saddened me.

  It looked like Aveline had fully woken up while I was escaping the bunker. Azarus was standing off to the side awkwardly as the little girl sat on Sena’s back, burying her face in the Shurengan’s crimson fur. Luckily, it didn’t look like the saber-tooth minded all that much. I was…pretty thankful that the child I had risked so much to save hadn’t seen me in my full, monstrous state yet. I gave Azarus a thankful nod as I passed him, which he returned, and then I vaulted back up onto Sena’s back. That caused Aveline to tense further and risk a single eye back to see who was now sitting behind her.

  She teared up when she saw it was me and twisted in her seat to bury her face into my stomach, sobbing for the first time since I’d met her. While she vented her fear, I addressed the group. “We need to keep going,” I said lowly, trying not to frighten Aveline any more than necessary. “I’m not sure we’re safe yet. We need to try to get out of the mountain before the bunker falls. Renauld, back up with me. You’re not fast enough on your own. Everyone else, we run.”

  That caused the questions on everyone's lips to die and nods to come my way. I held out a hand to help Renauld to help him into a sitting position behind me, and nodded to Sena’s questing eye when he had a good grip on me.

  The granddaughter of Tarus lumbered back to her feat, and we were all off once more. Fading into the distance, I heard the last sound I’d ever hear from the Netherim bunker.

  “T-minus six minutes until detachment…”

  And then we were out of earshot. But I knew that likely wasn’t far enough. I situated Aveline closer on my hip, which the distraught child barely seemed to notice, and leaned down closer to Sena’s ear. “Six minutes, Sena. We have to be out of here by then.”

  In response, Sena lowered her head and bore down harder into the stone of the tunnel, while I heard small explosions from the pads of her feet once more. I leaned up and covered Aveline’s ears as best I could, and shouted into the darkness of the tunnel. “ENHANCEMENT SKILLS! WE HAVE TO GO FASTER!”

  Azarus exploded into his full transformed state once more, white light once again shone through Venix’s chitinous plates, and wispy streams of what looked like water began to flow from each of Kazuma’s joints, trailing behind him. To my surprise, each of them was able to keep up with the sprinting form of the Shurengan beneath me. I expected that from Venix, but certainly not Kazuma, and Azarus wasn’t exactly known for his speed.

  I started to have hope that this would be enough. With this, surely we would make it in time.

  It turns out, though, that Lucretia wasn’t done with us.

  Abruptly, we reached the end of the tunnel, and we discovered why this entrance into the mountain wasn’t known.

  I slid down off of Sena’s back to stare at it in despair.

  It was sealed off.

  Dominating our view was a large, melted patch of stone that spanned over thirty feet above us. It almost looked like some kind of plug blocking off the path that Lucretia had created into her former home.

  After they’d come in…they had disguised their entrance.

  I grit my teeth at the sight, while I felt tears of frustration unexpectedly well up in my eyes.

  This couldn’t be it. Not after everything. Not after all we had endured, in that ancient, corroded hellscape. It couldn’t be to sit here, trapped like rats, as the artificial star of the Core went off like a bomb and incinerated us in a storm of Aetherial fire.

  There had to be something, anything we could do!

  I nearly ordered everyone to start digging and blasting their way through the stone of the mountain when I heard something behind us. Something that caused the bottom of my stomach to drop even further.

  A faint whispering.

  At first, I thought that on top of everything, Lucretia’s curse had followed us beyond the bounds of the bunker and into the tunnel. I expected to find hordes and hordes of violet, corrupted tentacles hunting in order to drag us back into that doomed bunker.

  I was wrong, though. While there were hordes coming up the tunnel behind us, they weren’t born of the curse.

  Instead…it was the dead.

  My mouth dropped open in shock as I watched dozens, hundreds…no…

  Thousand and thousands and thousands of ghosts come flying down the length of the tunnel. Indistinct and formed of ethereal emerald energy, they poured forth in masses and masses of vaguely human-shaped figures spiraling and winding among themselves in a nearly solid wall of…

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  What? Ectoplasm? Was that a thing?

  I…had heard from Sylvia, months and months ago, that ghosts were real as a subspecies of undead, but…

  I hadn’t expected my first encounter with them to be such an unbelievable amount.

  I wasn’t the only person to notice the oncoming wave of ghosts. All of my companions turned around to see what I had and stopped with open shock at the near tide of phantasms that were nearly on us. Aveline stirred from her fright long enough to try and raise her head from its buried position in my chest, but I stopped that.

  “What the hells…” I heard Kazuma mutter off to the side.

  If…these were…hostile…I wanted to spare her the sight of them.

  Because there was nothing we could do to stop this.

  We braced ourselves for the wave, only for them to flow around us. The ghosts ignored us altogether to crash against the sealed form of the tunnel instead. The surface of the sealed stone exploded into fragments of loose rock each and every time one of the spirits impacted the plug. They would reform afterward into that same, ghostly emerald shape, only to immediately crash into the seal once more.

  And there were a lot of them.

  So much stone was being excavated every second that all of us still among the living had to take a step back in order to not be shredded by it. Every moment, the plug was reduced, and we were one step closer to the open air.

  “System save me…” I heard Renauld breathe, for the first time since I’d known him making the sign of the Gyre with his hands. I hadn’t known he was religious…but I didn’t blame him for it, at the otherworldly sight.

  I wasn’t even Catholic, and I wanted to make the sign of the cross anyway.

  While my friends and companions were gaping in wonder at the sight of the undead saving our hides, something caught my attention. A whispering almost directly behind me, feminine in nature. I shivered as I felt a presence manifest at my back. Cautiously, I turned in place, only to see a familiar sight.

  I recognized this person.

  Travers had used her likeness to get us through the Engineering sector, after all.

  Standing before me was the ghostly form of Doctor Cecily Montblanc, Chief Engineer of the Netherim bunker. The color had been leeched from her, unlike Traver's illusion, to be replaced by the emerald green of the ectoplasm of her fellow spirits. Her long, ghostly hair floated in an unfelt breeze as she ignored me completely, instead slowly approaching the child held in my arms.

  “Cecily…” I breathed in shock at the sight of her. “You…you came to save us…all of them.” I shook my head in wondering realization. “You roused them for us, you must have…”

  All of the long-dead souls that must have lain in the Maturation Halls, possibly even the entire bunker…

  They had come when their Chief Engineer called.

  Aveline must have heard me because she looked up from where her head had been buried in my chest. “Mama?” I heard her whisper in sudden hope.

  I…could have stopped her then, before she turned around to see the deathless form of her ghostly mother…

  But I didn’t think it was my place. Nor would it be right to.

  The moment Aveline laid eyes on Cecily, she recognized her. No matter the state of living, a child knew when their mother was near.

  Aveline instantly started struggling in my arms, reaching for her mother with yearning, outstretched hands. “MAMA!” She shrieked, sudden tears flowing freely down her face. I set her down without protest, and the little girl immediately sprinted the short distance to the ghostly form of Cecily.

  Next to and behind me, I saw and felt it as the rest of my friends turned to watch the reunion of mother and daughter, drawn by the scream. All of them to the last immediately understood what was happening, and both them and I stared solemnly at what this could only be.

  A final goodbye.

  I expected Aveline to tragically pass through the immaterial form of her mother. I was both relieved and surprised when instead, she fell into the arms of Cecily in a sobbing hug, held firmly in the dead woman’s arms. The ghostly emerald eyes of Cecily Montblanc stared down fondly at the distraught form of her still living daughter, reaching up to idly brush a loose strand of hair behind Aveline’s ear.

  “My little hazelnut…” I heard a soft voice whisper upon the wind. “This…is farewell…”

  Aveline raised her head in order to stare up at her mother pleadingly. “Mama, no…”

  “I’m sorry, Aveline,” Cecily said, sorrow thick in her breathless voice. “But I cannot stay. I was only granted this last chance by She Who Breathes herself. Soon, I will pass beyond the veil and we shall not see each again for a very, very long time.” She cupped Aveline’s cheeks with two ghostly hands as her daughter started sobbing once more in renewed, childish grief.

  She…truly was a smart kid. She understood what that meant.

  “Dry your tears, my little hazelnut. This is not goodbye. Only…until next time,” Cecily whispered, surprisingly at peace with her own death. “You are meant for great things, Aveline Montblanc. We shall meet again, one day, in a land much purer than this. When that time comes, we shall dance together, and you can tell me of all that you accomplished. It will be a happy day, I promise you. But it will not come for many, many years. Now YOU must promise me that you will live well. Mourn me little, my dear. A part of me shall always be with you.”

  Aveline screwed at her eyes with one small fist, staring up at her mother with reddened eyes…

  And nodded. “Okay,” I heard her whisper, voice quavering. “I promise.” With that, she leaned back in to hug her undead mother once more.

  To my surprise, I heard muffled sobbing coming from my left. Turning my head, I saw that it was coming from Renauld. The Gnoll Healer looked to be overcome by the parting scene of mother and child, and wasn’t able to hold back his tears.

  I…couldn’t blame him.

  Solemnly, Azarus offered Renauld a dirty handkerchief that the dwarf pulled from under his breastplate. The Gnoll didn’t care; he just took it and blew into it.

  When I turned back to face the duo, I felt a chill run down my spine when I noticed that Cecily was now staring straight at me. The two of them had stood up from their crouch, and while I was fixed in place by the mother, the daughter was still clutching at her ghostly pants, unwilling to let go as of yet. Slowly, the two of them approached me.

  Before I could speak, I was silenced by Cecily’s raised hand. “Remember your promise,” Her voice drifted my way. “I hold you to it now and forever more, Nathaniel Hart.”

  I nodded, relieved that was all she had to ask of me. I was already intending to do that, anyway. “I will.”

  Cecily’s eyes narrowed at me. Quicker than I could track, her ethereal hand darted up, grabbed my collar, and dragged me close enough that I could feel a cold wind blowing into my face. This close to her, I swear I could see the faint outline of a skeleton inside of her ghostly form, its hollow sockets staring into my eyes. “Remember,” She hissed at me. “Now and forevermore, seedling.”

  The most intense shivers I’d ever felt in my life hit me then, all at once. They started from my spine before traveling to all corners of my body. I seized briefly, my fingers and toes curling involuntarily as I stared at Cecily in sudden, intense, soul-deep shock.

  That name…how…

  That must have been the reaction Cecily wanted because she stepped back to have one more private parting with her daughter. I staggered away from her as she did, only to be caught by the mailed hands of Azarus. I barely heard him at first, but eventually, his voice reached me.

  “…ate! Nate, are ya alright?!”

  I stared up at him blankly for a moment before I got hold of myself. “How did she know that…” I whispered, terrified that I knew the answer.

  “What? Knew what, Nate?” I heard Azarus say, as if from a vast distance.

  Slowly, I met Azarus’s name. “She…she called me by my mother’s childhood nickname for me,” I said haltingly. “Nobody…nobody should know that here.”

  Azarus knew what that meant. I’d told him, after all, that my mother was dead.

  And had been for a long, long time.

  My Dwarven friend shivered with me and made the sign of the Gyre.

  We were interrupted, then, by something new. Coming from behind us, I saw something that nearly made me weep it was so welcome.

  A shaft of sunlight, bright and beautiful, piercing through the dark of the tunnel.

  The uncountable horde of ghosts had broken through.