A fine dust of star-dust sparkles drifted through the vaulted archive hall, settling at last upon the stagnant, icy water or vanishing into the shadowed crevices of the stone walls. With the final whispers of hatred dispersed, a heavier weariness took root in their bones—an invisible weight of lead pressing down upon every sinew and joint.
They kindled a small campfire on a raised dais spared the worst of the flooding. Karrion, ever the master craftsman, gathered a few barely serviceable lengths of rotted timber and, with his weathered hands, coaxed up a flicker of flame using flint, steel, and a scant supply of oil. The orange hearthlight chased back the gloom, but it could not thaw the biting chill in the cavern nor dispel the thick pall of exhaustion that hovered between them.
Drops of corrosive rain still pattered through cracks high above, an unceasing metronome against the distant pool. Only the crackle of burning wood punctuated the hush—an uneasy silence heavy with unsaid words.
Raine leaned against a cold column, each breath tugging at the raw ache in his chest. The forging of the Starflame Blade had hollowed him, and Thalia's clandestine ministrations seemed only to enfold him in another layer of profound mystery. He closed his eyes, but his mind replayed the hollowed glare of the star-born wraiths and their final, fleeting sigh of release—an echo that haunted his heart.
Liberation or oblivion? he wondered, uncertain.
Thalia sat wrapped in her cloak at the far edge of the firelight, her face ashen, her breaths shallow. Occasionally she pressed a hand to her heart, her features tightening with pain—yet she said nothing, bearing her own suffering in silence as though she were one more specter among these ruins.
Karrion, hulking even in repose, did not tend his axe. Instead, he withdrew a folded vellum from his cloak: the original sketches and schematics for the Starflame Blade. The firelight danced across the intricate lines depicting a sword awash in molten star-metal and braided with living lava-veins. He traced each curve with a finger—bearing witness to every detail.
Raine sensed Karrion's grief long before he spoke. The dwarf's usual brash humor and steadfast resolve were gone, replaced by a grief so profound it seemed to crush his very spirit.
After a long pause, Karrion's voice rumbled across the chamber, thick with sorrow and unshed tears. "You know, Raine, you of the Morningstar lineage… you understand loss. But you still have your blood, your kinship—your hope. I… I have none of that left."
He looked up, the dying fire casting shadows deep within his eyes. "My home… Stoneheart. My beloved forge-city… is gone. Its heart swallowed by the Blight."
He unfolded the tale like a dirge: how Stoneheart had thrived on earth's ley currents, its forge-fires never dying, its rune-lights singing in the halls. Yet corruption seeped in from within, invisible at first—insidious whispers in the miners' minds, defiled runes that spiraled out of control, neighbors turning on each other with deranged madness. He spoke of mentors who sacrificed themselves to contain the outbreak, of last-ditch assaults that failed, of the familiar laughter of children twisted into screams of monstrosity.
"I was a runesmith," Karrion's voice trembled. "I should have protected my people… but the corruption—our own darkest selves—tore it all apart. I was the last to stand, dragging the nightmare across the broken land until… until I fled alone."
He drew the parchment close, his grip as firm as iron. "This blade," he said, "is my atonement. A vow to forge a weapon that will sever the Blight and grant rest to every wretched soul it claimed. I will smelt it in the crucible of the world's own heartbeat—its leyforge—and the fire of the stars themselves. Then, no more will the innocent suffer the same fate."
Raine's gaze held Karrion's, understanding at last the depth of the dwarf's resolve. "I understand," he replied, voice steady. "We will see this through, friend—to free those lost to the darkness."
Karrion nodded once, hard and solemn. He refolded the blueprint, tucking it close as though it were a fragment of his very soul. The campfire flickered between them, a fragile beacon against the suffocating gloom.
In that moment, the air itself seemed to acknowledge the weight of Karrion's confession and the enormity of their quest. The Fallen had been released; now the living must carry on—with the anvil's burden upon their shoulders, the forge's promise alight in their hearts—and steel themselves for the trials still to come.