Chapter 3 – The Wound Beneath Duskveil
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Morning came thin and gray, the kind of light that forgets to warm anything. The barrier around Duskveil still trembled, its runic veins flickering like a heartbeat losing rhythm. Fog dragged low through the alleys and settled over the canals until the whole outpost looked drowned in sleep.
Aric Venn stood on the Hall's upper terrace watching it. The smell of aether metal and wet stone filled his lungs. The shard from the Marrow Den lay on the table beside him, pulsing faintly under a glass dome. Each pulse sent a ripple through the air, a vibration he felt in his teeth. It had been doing that all night.
Warden Malken joined him, coat half-buttoned, eyes sunken. "Eira thinks it's a conduit. The veins beneath the swamp are singing through it."
"Then something's listening," Aric said.
She grimaced. "Containment hunt. You, your two hunters, Eira for readings, Dorek to manage the resonance gear. Stop whatever's feeding it before it reaches the surface."
Aric looked again at the fog swallowing the southern wall. "We'll need to go deep."
"Then go," she said. "And don't bring the storm back with you."
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By dusk, five figures waited at the breach. Ropes, hooks, lamps, weapons—everything smelled of oil and rain. Brann checked the seals on his lance-core while Serae adjusted the fletching of her arrows. Dorek fastened a crystal pack to his back, muttering at the hum. Eira held her meter steady; the needle shivered off its dial.
"Never seen readings this high," she whispered.
Aric looked down into the chasm. A slow breath rose from below, fog sliding over the edge. "Then we go quiet."
They descended. The ropes hissed through gloved hands, boots scraping damp stone. The deeper they went, the louder the hum became—more felt than heard, a vibration through bone and blood. The walls gleamed with crystal veins like frozen lightning.
At the bottom, the cavern opened into an abyssal cathedral. Columns of bone and glass spiraled upward into darkness. Pools of light reflected ceilings that looked alive. Aric knelt, touching the ground. The warmth beneath it throbbed to a rhythm—slow, patient, ancient.
"Eidric masonry," Dorek murmured, running a hand over runic blocks fused into the wall. "This place was built before the Hollowing."
Eira aimed her lamp at the far side. Fossilized beasts jutted from crystal walls, half-melted, their faces locked in silent screams.
Then the hum stopped.
Silence fell so heavy that everyone froze. Even breath felt too loud. Aric rose slowly, eyes narrowing. The air tasted metallic. Behind him, the pools began to ripple.
"Light," he said quietly.
The lamps brightened—and the water erupted.
A pillar of crystal shards burst upward, spraying molten fragments. Out of it coiled something vast, pale, and translucent. Its body was serpentine, armored in plates of living crystal. Wings, once grand, hung in tatters; every motion scraped light across the cavern walls. A skull of fused bone and glass turned toward them, and eyes like burning moons opened.
"The Aether Seraphid," Eira breathed.
It screamed. The sound tore through the chamber, shattered lamps, split stone. The team staggered. Aric's ears rang; he moved on instinct.
"Brann, front! Serae, high flank! Eira, anchors!"
Brann drove his lance's runic spear into the floor, a shield of light fanning outward. The beast's first strike hit like a falling cliff, scattering shards. The barrier cracked but held. Serae's arrow whistled past Aric's shoulder, bursting in blue flame against the creature's neck.
Aric darted forward. Each step felt slow in the charged air. He slashed low, twin blades crossing under the Seraphid's chest where plates parted. Sparks met ichor. The creature reared, tail sweeping; Aric rolled, felt the gust tear the ground behind him.
Dorek shouted, "Anchors set!" Metallic rings fired from his pack, embedding into stone, drawing runic cables that thrummed with light. "Resonance stable for ninety seconds!"
Eira extended a prism array. "Brann, give me a pulse window!"
The lancer drove his weapon into the ground again; energy flared up the shaft. The Seraphid slammed down, jaws cracking stone, and Brann caught the blow with the butt of his lance, both arms shaking. "Now!"
Eira fired the prism—five beams of white light that struck the creature's wings, pinning them in a lattice of energy. The Seraphid shrieked, twisting, scales splitting under the strain.
Aric saw the rhythm. Each beat of its heart sent light through the veins in its chest, the same pulse as the shard above. He focused, counting. One … two … three — the glow dimmed — he moved.
He sprinted along the anchor line, vaulted onto a fallen rib of crystal, and leapt. The blades sang as he crossed them. Impact. The runes along the edges flared gold; heat seared through his arms as he drove both weapons deep into the Seraphid's throat.
The world exploded into color.
Light poured from the wound, not red but silver, spilling like molten glass. The beast convulsed, tail lashing, throwing him off. He hit the ground, rolled, came up to see Brann impaled through the shoulder of his armor yet still standing, roaring defiance as he jammed the lance deeper.
Serae fired a final arrow straight into the creature's open maw. The arrow detonated inside its skull, fracturing crystal. Aric, half-blind from glare, charged again.
He felt the resonance—his heartbeat and the Seraphid's aligning. For an instant, he wasn't fighting; he was part of the rhythm of the world. He drove the blades home into the heart seam. "Fall," he whispered.
The Seraphid collapsed. Its body hit the ground like thunder. Shards flew in every direction, embedding in stone, in armor, in flesh. The hum stopped. Then a low sigh, almost peaceful, rippled through the cavern.
For a long moment, no one moved. Only the hiss of cooling crystal filled the air.
Brann pulled the spear from his wound, breathing ragged. "That all of it?"
Eira's meter spun wild. "No … it's redirecting."
Beneath the carcass, light began to pool. The body wasn't dying—it was dissolving, its energy sinking through cracks in the floor toward deeper chambers. The runes on the walls ignited, one by one, in patterns too old for any of them to read.
Aric watched as the serpent's heart crystal split open, revealing a hollow core—inside, a second shard pulsed like a star. He reached out, felt heat sear through his glove, and snatched it free.
Instantly, the cavern shook. A shockwave rippled upward; stone rained from above. "Out!" he shouted.
They ran. Light chased them through the tunnels, devouring shadow. When they burst back into the swamp night, the ground erupted behind them in a geyser of white flame. The fog lifted for the first time in months, revealing a sky streaked with aurora.
They collapsed beyond the barrier, armor smoking, lungs burning. Duskveil's pylons flared as the energy hit them, absorbing what they could. Then, slowly, the light dimmed. The hum returned—steady again, almost calm.
Aric stood, staring south. The wound's mouth still glowed faintly, breathing light. In his hand, the shard pulsed with a different rhythm—slower, deeper, as if syncing with his own heartbeat.
Eira approached, eyes wide. "That thing wasn't corruption," she said softly. "It was carrying it."
Aric looked toward the fog-shrouded horizon where thunder murmured below the earth. "Then whatever sent it," he said, "is still down there."
The wind shifted. From the Hollow Vale came a faint echo—like a great door unlocking far beneath the world.
Aric tightened his grip on the shard. "Let it wake," he murmured. "We'll be waiting."
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End of Chapter 3 – The Wound Beneath Duskveil